“The clergy have always had great faith in famine, in affliction, in pestilence. They know that a man is a thousand times more apt to thank God for a crust or a crumb than for a banquet.”

"The Brooklyn Divines." Brooklyn Union (Brooklyn, NY), 1883.

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Robert G. Ingersoll439

Union United States Army officer 1833–1899

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However a quote very similar to this one can actually be found in his works. In Sermon XXVII (Walshe translation/in Quint Sermon XXXIV) we can read:

Middle High German: Haete der mensche niht me ze tuonne mit gote, dan daz er dankbaere ist, ez waere genuoc.
Disputed

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“I have known no man of genius who had not to pay, in some affliction or defect either physical or spiritual, for what the gods had given him.”

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No. 2, The Pines (1914) <br class="br"> And Even Now http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/evnow10.txt (1920)

“Men that look no further than their outsides, think health an appurtenance unto life, and quarrel with their constitutions for being sick; but I that have examined the parts of man, and know upon what tender filaments that fabric hangs, do wonder that we are not always so; and considering the thousand doors that lead to death, do thank my God that we can die but once.”

Thomas Browne book Religio Medici

Section 44
Compare: "I know death hath ten thousand several doors / For men to take their exits.", John Webster, Duchess of Malfi (1623); Act IV, scene ii.
Religio Medici (1643), Part I