Robert Green Ingersoll was an American lawyer, writer, and orator during the Golden Age of Free Thought, who campaigned in defense of agnosticism. He was nicknamed “The Great Agnostic”. These Robert Green Ingersoll quotes will motivate you in life.
Best Robert Green Ingersoll Quotes
- “A believer is a bird in a cage, a freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “Mental slavery is mental death, and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “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
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“The hands that help are better far than lips that pray.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “Happiness is not a reward – it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment – it is a result.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “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
- “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
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“We rise by lifting others.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “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
- “If God created the universe, there was a time when he commenced to create. Back of that commencement there must have been an eternity. In that eternity what was this God doing? He certainly did not think. There was nothing to think about. He did not remember. Nothing had ever happened. What did he do? Can you imagine anything more absurd than an infinite intelligence in infinite nothing wasting an eternity?” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
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“Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “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
- “Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
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“Think of the egotism of a man who believes that an infinite being wants his praise!” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “Why should we postpone our joy to another world? Let us get all we can of the good between the cradle and the grave, all that we can of the truly dramatic. If, when death comes, that is the end, we have at least made the best of this life.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “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
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“Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “It is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of the dead.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “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
- “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
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“There can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “The old doctrine that God wanted man to do something for him, and that he kept a watchful eye upon all the children of men; that he rewarded the virtuous and punished the wicked, is gradually fading from the mind. We know that some of the worst men have what the world calls success. We know that some of the best men lie upon the straw of failure. We know that honesty goes hungry, while larceny sits at the banquet. We know that the vicious have every physical comfort, while the virtuous are often clad in rags.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
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“The church teaches us that we can make God happy by being miserable ourselves.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “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
- “Blasphemy is what an old dogma screams at a new truth.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
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“Fear paints pictures of ghosts and hangs them in the gallery of ignorance.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “Who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind?” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “You cannot be so poor that you cannot help somebody.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “Ignorance worships mystery; reason explains it; the one grovels, the other soars.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
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“To hate man and worship God seems to be the sum of all the creeds.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “Would God give a bird wings and make it a crime to fly? Would he give me brains and make it a crime to think? Any God that would damn one of his children for the expression of his honest thought wouldn’t make a decent thief. When I read a book and don’t believe it, I ought to say so. I will do so and take the consequences like a man.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll quotes
- “The church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber dislikes a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
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“God so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn a large majority of the human race.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right that he claims for himself.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “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
- “The Church has always been willing to swap off treasures in heaven for cash down.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “Is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world who believes in the Garden of Eden story? If you find any man who believes it, strike his forehead and you will hear an echo. Something is for rent.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “Christianity did not come with tidings of great joy, but with a message of eternal grief. It came with the threat of everlasting torture on its lips. It meant war on earth and perdition hereafter.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
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“There will never be a generation of great men until there has been a generation of free women – of free mothers.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “All of the Ten Commandments that are good were old; all that were new art foolish. If Jehovah had been civilized he would have left out the commandment about keeping the Sabbath, and in its place would have said: “Thou shalt not enslave thy fellow-men.” He would have omitted the one about swearing, and said: “The man shall have but one wife, and the woman but one husband.” He would have left out the one about graven images, and in its stead would have said: “Thou shalt not wage wars of extermination, and thou shalt not unsheathe the sword except in self-defence.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “If there be an infinite Being, he does not need our help – we need not waste our energies in his defense.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
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“If there is a God who will damn his children forever, I would rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous tyrant.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “This, in my judgment, is the highest philosophy: First, do not regret having lost yesterday; second, do not fear that you will lose tomorrow; third, enjoy today.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “They say: Belief is important. I say: No, actions are important. Judge by deed, not by creed.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “As long as a man lives he should study. Death alone has the right to dismiss the school.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
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“It is better to deserve without receiving than to receive without deserving” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “TO PLOW IS TO PRAY; TO PLANT IS TO PROPHESY,
AND THE HARVEST ANSWERS AND FULFILLS.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll - “The priests of one religion never credit the miracles of another religion. Is this because priests instinctively know priests?” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “Man must learn to rely upon himself. Reading bibles will not protect him from the blasts of winter, but houses, fires. and clothing will. To prevent famine, one plow is worth a million sermons, and even patent medicines will cure more diseases than all the prayers uttered since the beginning of the world.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “Instead of loving a God, we love each other. Instead of the religion of the sky-the religion of this world-the religion of the family-the love of husband for wife, of wife for husband-the love of all for children. So that now the real religion is: Let us live for each other; let us live for this world without regard for the past and without fear for the future. Let us use our faculties and our powers for the benefit of ourselves and others, knowing that if there be another world, the same philosophy that gives us joy here will make us happy there.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
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“Nothing could be more idiotic and absurd than the doctrine of the trinity.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “Most men are followers, and implicitly rely upon the judgment of others. They mistake solemnity for wisdom, and regard a grave countenance as the title page and Preface to a most learned volume. So they are easily imposed upon by forms, strange garments, and solemn ceremonies. And when the teaching of parents, the customs of neighbors, and the general tongue approve and justify a belief or creed, no matter how absurd, it is hard even for the strongest to hold the citadel of his soul. In each country, in defence of each religion, the same arguments would be urged.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “The intellectual advancement of man depends on how often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “Intellectual liberty is the air of the soul, the sunshine of the mind, and without it, the world is a prison, the universe is a dungeon.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
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“If the Bible and my brain are both the work of the same infinite God, whose fault is it that the book and my brain do not agree?” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “According to the celestial multiplication table, once one is three, and three times one is one, and according to heavenly subtraction if we take two from three, three are left. The addition is equally peculiar, if we add two to one we have but one. Each one is equal to himself and the other two.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “Arguments cannot be answered with insults. . . . Kindness is strength. . . . Anger blows out the lamp of the mind. In the examination of a great and important question, every one should be serene, slow-pulsed, and calm.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “What light is to the eyes – what air is to the lungs – what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
- “A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether it is or is not a fact. A lie will not fit anything except another lie.” ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
