“There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments — there are consequences.”

— Robert G. Ingersoll

"The Christian Religion" The North American Review, August 1881 http://books.google.com/books?id=OPmfAAAAMAAJ&q=%22There+are+in+nature+neither+rewards+nor+punishments+there+are+consequences%22&pg=PA14#v=onepage http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=nora&cc=nora&view=image&seq=121&idno=nora0133-2 Variants: We must remember that in nature there are neither rewards nor punishments there are consequences. The life and death of Christ do not constitute an atonement. They are worth the example, the moral force, the heroism of benevolence, and in so far as the life of Christ produces emulation in the direction of goodness, it has been of value to mankind. As published in Some Reasons Why (1895) http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/some_reasons_why.html In nature, there are neither rewards nor punishments — there are consequences. Letters and Essays, 3rd Series. Some Reasons Why, viii. Source: The Christian Religion An Enquiry Context: There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments — there are consequences. The life of Christ is worth its example, its moral force, its heroism of benevolence.

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 "There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments — there are consequences." by Robert G. Ingersoll?

Robert G. Ingersoll439

Union United States Army officer 1833–1899

Related quotes

“Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.”

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

“Punishment? Reward! Punishment? Reward!”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Song lyrics, Mutiny (1993), Mutiny in Heaven

“Expect neither reward nor beatitude. Return noble waves for ignoble.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

Diary of an Unknown (1988)

“It should be mentioned that any external supernatural agency plays no part whatever in the moulding of the character of a Buddhist. In Buddhism there is no one to reward or punish. Pain or happiness are the inevitable results of one's actions. The question of incurring the pleasure or displeasure of a God does not enter the mind of a Buddhist. Neither hope of reward nor fear of punishment acts as an incentive to him to do good or to refrain from evil.”

Narada Maha Thera (1898–1983) Sri Lankan monk and missionary

Buddhism in a Nutshell

“Some distance away is a white azalea bush which stuns me with its stately beauty. ____ This is pristine natural beauty. it is irrepressible, seeks no reward, and is without goal, a beauty derived neither from symbolism nor metaphor and needing neither analogies nor associations.”

Gao Xingjian book Soul Mountain

Source: Soul Mountain (1989), ch. 10, p. 61.

“Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned; they therefore do as they like.”

Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow (1731–1806) British lawyer and Tory politician

Quoted in John Poynder, Literary Extracts (1844), vol. 1, p. 268. https://archive.org/stream/literaryextracts01poynuoft#page/268/mode/2up This is often misquoted as "Did you ever expect a corporation to have a conscience, when it has no soul to be damned, and no body to be kicked?"

“About belief or lack of belief in an afterlife: Some of you may know that I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddhist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort.
I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead.”

Kurt Vonnegut book God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian

In A Man Without a Country (2005) p. 80–81 Vonnegut makes a very similar statement:
God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)
Context: About belief or lack of belief in an afterlife: Some of you may know that I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddhist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort.
I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead. My German-American ancestors, the earliest of whom settled in our Middle West about the time of our Civil War, called themselves "Freethinkers," which is the same sort of thing. My great grandfather Clemens Vonnegut wrote, for example, "If what Jesus said was good, what can it matter whether he was God or not?"
I myself have written, "If it weren't for the message of mercy and pity in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, I wouldn't want to be a human being. I would just as soon be a rattlesnake."