“They did not regard men as slaves to be ruled by torture, by lash and chain, nor as children to be cheated with illusions, rocked in the cradle of an idiot creed and soothed by a lullaby of lies.”
A Thanksgiving Sermon (1897)
Context: I thank the great scientists—those who have reached the foundation, the bed-rock—who have built upon facts—the great scientists, in whose presence theologians look silly and feel malicious. The scientists never persecuted, never imprisoned their fellow-men. They forged no chains, built no dungeons, erected no scaffolds—tore no flesh with red hot pincers—dislocated no joints on racks—crushed no bones in iron boots—extinguished no eyes—tore out no tongues and lighted no fagots. They did not pretend to be inspired—did not claim to be prophets or saints or to have been born again. They were only intelligent and honest men. They did not appeal to force or fear. They did not regard men as slaves to be ruled by torture, by lash and chain, nor as children to be cheated with illusions, rocked in the cradle of an idiot creed and soothed by a lullaby of lies. They did not wound—they healed. They did not kill—they lengthened life. They did not enslave—they broke the chains and made men free. They sowed the seeds of knowledge, and many millions have reaped, are reaping, and will reap the harvest of joy.
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Robert G. Ingersoll 439
Union United States Army officer 1833–1899Related quotes
What rules the World? (also known by The Hand That Rocks The Cradle Is The Hand That Rules The World) reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919).
Context: They say that man is mighty,
He governs land and sea;
He wields a mighty scepter
O'er lesser powers than he;
But a mighty power and stronger,
Man from his throne hath hurled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.
Al-Hidayah (593 AH, 1197 CE), Charles Hamilton's translation, 1791
Source: Hidayah (Muslim law book), Hamilton, II, 409. https://archive.org/details/TheHedayaCommentaryOnIslamicLawsByShyakhBurhanuddinAbuBakrAlMarghinani/page/n249/mode/1up (Also quoted in Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Ch. 11)
Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 29
Context: Ethically and morally, man has also made progress. From the earliest dawn of recorded history strong men made slaves of the weak. Primitive man regarded woman much as he did a slave or an animal, an instrument through which his comfort and pleasure might be increased. Contrast the former custom of exposing infants, the aged, and the helpless to the elements or to wild beasts, when their presence became a burden, with the present practice of erecting orphans' homes, homes for the aged, and asylums for the helpless.

Their Morals and Ours (1938)
Context: (On the American Civil War) "History has different yardsticks for the cruelty of the Northerners and the cruelty of the Southerners in the Civil War. A slave-owner who through cunning and violence shackles a slave in chains, and a slave who through cunning or violence breaks the chains – let not the contemptible eunuchs tell us that they are equals before a court of morality!"

As attributed by Dorothy Roubicek in The Secret History of Wonder Woman https://books.google.com/books?id=b3GBAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT264&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q=like%20being&f=false by Jill Lepore, (Oct. 23, 2014), p. 240.
Attributed

Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), "No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality", p. 134

Textbook of Americanism http://laissez-fairerepublic.com/textbook.htm (1946).
Defence at his Heresy Trial