“In all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. They have worshiped their destroyers; they have canonized the most gigantic liars, and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. Under the loftiest monuments sleeps the dust of murder.”

— Robert G. Ingersoll

Source: Humboldt From 'The Gods and Other Lectures'

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "In all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. They have worshiped their destroyers; they have canonize…" by Robert G. Ingersoll?

Robert G. Ingersoll 439

Union United States Army officer 1833–1899

Related quotes

“A large proportion of the offices in this vast country is not held by the best, most learned and most cultivated men, but by men of mediocre attainments, whose hearts and whose eyes have been fixed on those places, and who, to obtain them, have used every means, honorable and dishonorable.”

William H. Crogman (1841–1931) American classical philologist

Source: Talks for the Times (1896), "The Importance of Correct Ideals" (1892), p. 281

“Can a man who lies, cheats, steals, and sometimes does violence to other people be a man of honor?
Kolabati looked into his eyes. "He can if he lies to liars, cheats cheaters, steals from thieves, and limits his violence to those who are violent.”

F. Paul Wilson (1946) novelist

“How wonderful to know someone who was bad and dishonorable and a cheat and a liar, when all the world was filled with people who would not lie to save their souls and who would rather starve than do a dishonorable deed!”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

“Most people don't grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

“This is the day on which the American people each year acknowledged that they have such a debt. It has been set aside that a grateful Nation may do fitting honor to the memory of those who have made the greatest and most voluntary contribution to it. Here about us, in this place of beauty and reverence, lies the mortal dust of a noble host, to whom we have come to pay our tribute, as thousands of other like gatherings will do throughout our land. In their youth and strength, their love and loyalty, those who rest here gave to their country all that mortality can give. For what they sacrificed we must give back the pledge of faith to all that they held dear, constantly renewed, constantly justified. Doing less would betray them and dishonor us.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Reign of Law (1925)

“The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

“Those only deserve a monument who do not need one; that is, who have raised themselves a monument in the minds and memories of men.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

No. 388
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

“I have investigated the dust-heaps of humanity, and found a treasure in all of them. I have found that humanity is not incidentally engaged, but eternally and systematically engaged, in throwing gold into the gutter and diamonds into the sea.”

G. K. Chesterton book The Defendant

"Introduction"
The Defendant (1901)
Context: Now it has appeared to me unfair that humanity should be engaged perpetually in calling all those things bad which have been good enough to make other things better, in everlastingly kicking down the ladder by which it has climbed. It has appeared to me that progress should be something else besides a continual parricide; therefore I have investigated the dust-heaps of humanity, and found a treasure in all of them. I have found that humanity is not incidentally engaged, but eternally and systematically engaged, in throwing gold into the gutter and diamonds into the sea.

“Zeus, n. The chief of Grecian gods, adored by the Romans as Jupiter and by the modern Americans as God, Gold, Mob and Dog. Some explorers who have touched upon the shores of America, and one who professes to have penetrated a considerable distance to the interior, have thought that these four names stand for as many distinct deities, but in his monumental work on Surviving Faiths, Frumpp insists that the natives are monotheists, each having no other god than himself, whom he worships under many sacred names.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“Neither I nor anyone else knows what a standard is. We all recognize a dishonorable act, but have no idea what honor is.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Letter to A.N. Pleshcheev (April 9, 1889)
Letters

“In all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. They have worshiped their destroyers; they have canonized the most gigantic liars, and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. Under the loftiest monuments sleeps the dust of murder.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Robert G. Ingersoll 439

Related quotes

Related topics