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Robert Green Ingersoll Quotes - Page 15

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Shakespeare was an intellectual ocean, whose waves touched all the shores of thought; within which were all the tides and waves of destiny and will; over which swept all the storms of fate, ambition and revenge; upon

Shakespeare was an intellectual ocean, whose waves touched all the shores of thought; within which were all the tides and waves of destiny and will; over which swept all the storms of fate, ambition and revenge; upon which fell the gloom and darkness of despair and death and all the sunlight of content and love, and within which was the inverted sky lit with the eternal stars -- an intellectual ocean -- toward which all rivers ran, and from which now the isles and continents of thought receive their dew and rain.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Stars, Revenge, Rain
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.616, Library of Alexandria

Just to the extent that the Bible was appealed to in matters of science, science was retarded; and just to the extent that science has been appealed to in matters of religion, religion has advanced - so that now the object of intelligent religionists is to adopt a creed that will bear the test and criticism of science.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Intelligent, Religion, Criticism
Robert Green Ingersoll (2004). “Superstition and Other Essays”

When your little child tells a lie, do not rush at him as though the world were about to go into bankruptcy. Be honest with him. A tyrant father will have liars for his children; do you know that? A lie is born of tyranny upon the one hand and weakness upon the other, and when you rush at a poor little boy with a club in your hand, of course he lies.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Children, Kindness, Father
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”

Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith! Banish me from Eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge!

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

I am going to put the Bible out of business.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Bible, Biblical

To me, the most obscene word in our language is celibacy.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Language, Celibacy, Obscene
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.727, Library of Alexandria

The credulity of the church is decreasing, and the most marvelous miracles are not either 'explained,' or allowed to take refuge behind the mistakes of the translators, or hide in the drapery of allegory.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Mistake, Miracle, Church
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.375, Library of Alexandria

In my judgment, the Deists were all successfully answered. The god of nature is certainly as bad as the God of the Old Testament. It is only when we discard the idea of a deity, the idea of cruelty or goodness in nature, that we are able ever to bear with patience the ills of life. I feel that I am neither a favorite nor a victim. Nature neither loves nor hates me.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Hate, Ideas, Able
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.2176, Library of Alexandria

There is in all artists a little of the vagabond.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Art, Artist, Vagabonds
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.4120, Library of Alexandria

Talent has the four seasons: spring, that is to say, the sowing of the seeds; summer, growth; autumn, the harvest; winter, intellectual death. But there is now and then a genius who has no winter, and, no matter how many years he may live, on the blossom of his thought no snow falls. Genius has the climate of perpetual growth.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Summer, Spring, Fall
Robert Green Ingersoll, Clinton P. Farrell (1900). “The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll: Tributes and miscellany”

Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud-and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word. But in the night of Death Hope sees a star and listening Love can hear the rustling of a wing.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Stars, Night, Echoes
Robert Green Ingersoll (1911). “The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll”

Cruelty hardens and degrades, kindness reforms and ennobles.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Kindness, Reform, Civility
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.4249, Library of Alexandria

No one, in the world's whole history, ever attempted to substantiate a truth by a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of miracle. Nothing but falsehood ever attested itself by signs and wonders. No miracle ever was performed, and no sane man ever thought he had performed one, and until one is performed, there can be no evidence of the existence of any power superior to, and independent of nature.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Independent, Men, Miracle
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.34, Library of Alexandria

When one of your children tells a lie, be honest with him; tell him that you have told hundreds of them yourself. Tell him it is not the best way; that you have tried it. Tell him as the man did in Maine when his boy left home: "John, honesty is the best policy; I have tried both."

Robert Green Ingersoll
Children, Honesty, Lying
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.210, Library of Alexandria

The Church demonstrated the falsity and folly of Darwin's theories by showing that they contradicted the Mosaic account of creation, and now that the theories of Darwin having been fairly established, the Church says that the Mosaic account is true because it is in harmony with Darwin. Now, if it should turn out that Darwin was mistaken, what then?

Robert Green Ingersoll
Atheism, Church, Mosaics
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.1846, Library of Alexandria

I found that the clergy did not understand their own book.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Book, Found, Clergy
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.257, Library of Alexandria

Had he been willing to live a hypocrite, he would have been respectable, he at least could have died surrounded by other hypocrites, and at his death there would have been an imposing funeral, with miles of carriages, filled with hypocrites, and above his hypocritical dust there would have been a hypocritical monument covered with lies.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Lying, Hypocrite, Dust
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.806, Library of Alexandria

The Unitarian Church has done more than any other church to substitute character for creed, and to say that a man should be judged by his spirit; by the climate of his heart; by the autumn of his generosity; by the spring of his hope; that he should be judged by what he does; by the influence that he exerts, rather than by the mythology he may believe.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Spring, Believe, Heart
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.4503, Library of Alexandria

Abraham Lincoln was, in my judgment, in many respects, the grandest man ever President of the United States. Upon his monument these words should be written: "Here sleeps the only man in the history of the world who, having been clothed with almost absolute power, never abused it, except upon the side of mercy."

Robert Green Ingersoll
Sleep, Men, President
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.198, Library of Alexandria

There is more real devotional feeling summoned from the temple of the mind by great music than by any sermon ever delivered.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Art, Real, Feelings
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The Works of Robert G.Ingersoll. [Dresden Ed.]”

Every creed is a rock in running water: humanity sweeps by it. Every creed cries to the universe, "Halt!" A creed is the ignorant Past bulling the enlightened Present.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Running, Past, Rocks
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.90, Library of Alexandria

We must remember that there is a great difference between a myth and a miracle. A myth is the idealization of a fact. A miracle is the counterfeit of a fact. There is the same difference between a myth and a miracle that there is between fiction and falsehood -- between poetry and perjury. Miracles belong to the far past and the far future. The little line of sand, called the present, between the seas, belongs to common sense to the natural.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Past, Sea, Differences
Robert G. Ingersoll (1997). “Ingersoll's Greatest Lectures”, p.451, Health Research Books

Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud

Robert Green Ingersoll
Life, Two, Looks
Robert Green Ingersoll (1952). “Life and Letters”

Laughing has always been considered by theologians as a crime.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Laughter, Laughing, Crime
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.2352, Library of Alexandria

If we are immortal it is a fact in nature, and we are not indebted to priests for it, nor to bibles for it, and it cannot be destroyed by unbelief.

Robert Green Ingersoll
Nature, Facts, Priests
Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.290, Library of Alexandria

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