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Robert Green Ingersoll Quotes

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Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.

Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Inspirational, Motivational, Happiness
Robert Green Ingersoll (1909). “Miscellany”

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Inspiring, Wisdom, Nature
'Some Reasons Why' (1881) pt. 8 'The New Testament' in 'The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll' (1915) vol. 2, p. 315

It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Education, Wisdom, School

Do you not know that every religion in the world has declared every other religion a fraud? Yes, we all know it. That is the time all religions tell the truth - each of the other.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Religion, Atheism, World
Robert Green Ingersoll (1898). “Lectures of Col. R.G. Ingersoll: Including His Letters on the Chinese God--Is Suicide a Sin?--The Right to One's Life--etc. Etc. Etc”

...in every religion the priest insists on five things - First: There is a God. Second: He has made known his will. Third: He has selected me to explain this message. Fourth: We will now take up a collection; and Fifth: Those who fail to subscribe will certainly be damned.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Messages, Firsts, Failing
Robert Green Ingersoll (1920). “Ingersoll: Fifty Great Selections, Lectures, Tributes, After Dinner Speeches and Essays, Carefully Selected from the Twelve Volume Dresden Edition of Colonel Ingersoll's Complete Works”

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

Robert Green Ingersoll
Inspirational, Happiness, Depression
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.1681, Library of Alexandria

Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Respect, Rights, Giving
"The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll", Vol VII, 2009.

The hands that help are better far than lips that pray.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Atheist, Hands, Religion
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.886, Library of Alexandria

There can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Freedom, Men, Tyrants
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.55, Library of Alexandria

In all ages, hypocrites, called priests, have put crowns upon the heads of thieves, called kings.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Kings, Hypocrite, Hypocrisy
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.114, Library of Alexandria

God so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn a large majority of the human race.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Race, Religion, Mind
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.905, Library of Alexandria

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.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Christian, Country, Book

Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Religion, Atheism, Reform
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.1182, Library of Alexandria

All I have to say is, Love one another - that is the height of all philosophy. It is beyond all religions. It is the secret of joy - the fountain of Perpetual Youth - the only rainbow on life's dark cloud.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Philosophy, Dark, Clouds

The myth of hell represents all the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Revenge, Heart, Men

All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable person that the Bible is simply and purely of human invention - of barbarian invention - is to read it. Read it as you would any other book; think of it as you would of any other; get the bandage of reverence from your eyes; drive from your heart the phantom of fear; push from the throne of your brain the cowled form of superstition - then read the Holy Bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom, goodness and purity, to be the author of such ignorance and of such atrocity.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Book, Eye, Heart
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.15, Library of Alexandria

The Emperor Constantine, who lifted Christianity into power, murdered his wife Fausta, and his eldest son Crispus, the same year that he convened the Council of Nice to decide whether Jesus Christ was a man or the Son of God. The council decided that Christ was consubstantial with the father. This was in the year 325. We are thus indebted to a wife-murderer for settling the vexed question of the divinity of the Savior.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Jesus, Father, Nice
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.776, Library of Alexandria

A believer is a bird in a cage, a freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Atheist, Eagles, Wings
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.108, Library of Alexandria

We rise by lifting others.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Helping Others, Society, Public Service

Superstition is, always has been, and forever will be, the foe of progress, the enemy of education and the assassin of freedom.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Forever, Enemy, Religion
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.1083, Library of Alexandria

When I became convinced that the universe is natural, that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell. The dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Atheist, Wall, Light
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.929, Library of Alexandria

The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Inspirational, Positive, Sports
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.3045, Library of Alexandria

The intellectual advancement of man depends on how often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Men, Intellectual, Religion
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.49, Library of Alexandria

I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Men, Doubt, Mind
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.183, Library of Alexandria

If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Ambition, Ignorance, Civilization
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.18, Library of Alexandria

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