“Cruelty is the worst of sins. It is far better to worship a false God, than to injure your neighbor—far better to bow before a monstrosity of stone, than to enslave your fellow-men.”

— Robert G. Ingersoll

Context: I do not think idolatry the worst of sins. Cruelty is the worst of sins. It is far better to worship a false God, than to injure your neighbor—far better to bow before a monstrosity of stone, than to enslave your fellow-men.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Cruelty is the worst of sins. It is far better to worship a false God, than to injure your neighbor—far better to bow b…" by Robert G. Ingersoll?

Robert G. Ingersoll 439

Union United States Army officer 1833–1899

Related quotes

“The call to religion is not a call to be better than your fellows, but to be better than yourself.”

Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) American clergyman and activist

Source: Life Thoughts (1858), p. 18

“The sleep of a wise man is far better than the worship of an ignorant one during the night.”

Musa al-Kadhim (745–799) Seventh of the Twelve Imams and regarded by Sunnis as a renowned scholar

Ibn Shu’ba al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'Uqul, p. 419.
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, Religious

“You are better than your god. You are better than your religion.”

Matt Dillahunty (1969) American activist

Episode 578: "Still More Scamlets" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDcLAeTm5AY, Channel Austin (November 9, 2008)
The Atheist Experience
Context: You are better than your god. You are better than your religion. So am I, so is damn near everybody on the planet. I wish you people would wake up and see this. Stop apologizing for this! [holds up The Bible] It's not the Good Book, there's nothing good about it. All it does is poison minds. All it does is make you sacrifice your humanity— the only thing that you have that is of any value— in order to sit around in deference to your gods.

“You sang far better than you knew; the songs
That for your listeners’ hungry hearts sufficed
Still live,—but more than this to you belongs:
You sang a race from wood and stone to Christ.”

James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) writer and activist

O Black and Unknown Bards, st. 6.
Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917)

“I am glad that you admit that a bad God is worse than no God. If so, the atheist is far better than the believer in Jehovah, and far better than the believer in the divinity of Jesus Christ—because I am perfectly satisfied that none but a bad God would threaten to say to any human soul, “Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” So that, before any Christian can be better than an atheist, he must reform his God.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Answer to Lyman Abbott (unfinished), responding to Abbott, Lyman. "Flaws in Ingersollism." The North American Review 150, no. 401 (1890): 446-457.

“Women have a much better time than men in this world; there are far more things forbidden to them.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“Better to have one woman on your side than ten men.”

Robert Jordan The Great Hunt

al'Lan Mandragoran
Variant: There is an old saying here in the Borderlands: "Better to have one woman on your side than ten men."
Source: The Great Hunt (15 November 1990)