Robert Green Ingersoll Quotes
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Every flower about a house certifies to the refinement of somebody. Every vine climbing and blossoming tells of love and joy
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Love your friends and be just to your enemies.
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Fear paints pictures of ghosts and hangs them in the gallery of ignorance.
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To know that the Bible is the literature of a barbarous people, to know that it is uninspired, to be certain that the supernatural does not and cannot exist - all this is but the beginning of wisdom.
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Liberty cannot be sacrificed for the sake of temperance, for the sake of morality, or for the sake of anything. It is of more value than everything. Yet some people would destroy the sun to prevent the growth of weeds. Liberty sustains the same relation to all the virtues that the sun does to life.
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If we should put god in the Constitution there would be no room left for man.
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All should be taught that the highest ambition is to be happy, and to add to the well-being of others; that place and power are not necessary to success; that the desire to acquire great wealth is a kind of insanity. They should be taught that it is a waste of energy, a waste of thought, a waste of life, to acquire what you do not need and what you do not really use for the benefit of yourself or others.
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Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers.
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Religion is one of the phases of thought through which the world is passing.
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Nothing discloses real character like the use of power.
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Civilization has gotten further and further from the so-called 'natural' man, who uses all his faculties: perception, invention, improvisation.
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Every human being should be taught that his first duty is to take care of himself, and that to be self-respecting he must be self-supporting. To live on the labor of others, either by force which enslaves, or by cunning which robs, or by borrowing or begging, is wholly dishonorable. Every man should be taught some useful art.
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Commerce is the great civilizer.
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Everyone should be taught the nobility of labor, the heroism and splendor of honest effort. As long as it is considered disgraceful to labor, or aristocratic not to labor, the world will be filled with idleness and crime, and with every possible moral deformity.
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If nobody has too much, everybody will have enough.
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The emblem of equal rights. It means free hands, free lips, self- government, and the sovereignty of the individual.
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Hope is the consolation of the world.
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If a man wishes to have God recognized in the constitution of our country, let him read the history of the Inquisition, and let him remember that hundreds of millions of men, women, and children have been sacrificed to placate the wrath, or win the approbation of this god.
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Love is the only bow on Life's dark cloud. It is the Morning and the Evening Star. It shines upon the cradle of the babe, and sheds its radiance on the quiet tomb. It is the mother of Art—inspirer of poet, patriot, and philosopher. It is the air and light of every heart— builder of every home—kindler of every fire on every hearth. It was the first to dream of immortality. It fills the world with melody, for Music is the voice of Love.
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It is contended by many that ours is a Christian government, founded upon the Bible, and that all who look upon the book as false or foolish are destroying the foundation of our country. The truth is, our government is not founded upon the rights of gods, but upon the rights of men. Our Constitution was framed, not to declare and uphold the deity of Christ, but the sacredness of humanity. Ours is the first government made by the people and for the people. It is the only nation with which the gods have had nothing to do.
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Small people delight in what they call consistency-that is, it gives them immense pleasure to say that they believe now exactly as they did ten years ago. This simply amounts to a certificate that they have not grown-that they have not developed-and that they know just as little now as they ever did. The highest possible conception of consistency is to be true to the knowledge of today, without the slightest reference to what your opinion was years ago.
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The most important thing in this world is liberty. More important than food or clothes - more important than gold or houses or lands - more important than art or science - more important than all religions, is the liberty of man.
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The history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of infidels.
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Give any orthodox church the power, and to-day they would punish heresy with whip, and chain, and fire. As long as a church deems a certain belief essential to salvation, just so long it will kill and burn if it has the power.
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the inventor of the plow did more good than the maker of the first rosary - because, say what you will, plowing is better than praying.
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Laughing has always been considered by theologians as a crime.
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I would rather that we all should go to eternal chaos, to black and starless night, than that just one soul should suffer eternal agony.
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The more a man knows, the more willing he is to learn-the less a man knows, the more positive he is that he knows everything.
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Of course, ministers look upon theaters as rival attractions, and most of their hatred is born of business views. They think people ought to be driven to church by having all other places closed. In my judgment the theater has done good, while the church has done harm. The drama never has insisted upon burning anybody. Persecution is not born of the stage.
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[T]he blossom of benevolence, of charity, is the fairest flower, no matter whether it blooms by the side of a hovel, or bursts from a vine climbing the marble pillar of a palace. I respect no man because he is rich; I hold in contempt no man because he is poor.
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