Robert G. Ingersoll Quotes

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We have at last ascertained that miracles can be perfectly understood; that there is nothing mysterious about them; that they are simply transparent falsehoods.

Robert G. Ingersoll
It can be truthfully said that science was thrust into the brain of Europe upon the point of a Moorish lance.

Robert G. Ingersoll
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 G. Ingersoll
If we admit that some infinite being has controlled the destinies of persons and peoples, history becomes a most cruel and bloody farce.

Robert G. Ingersoll
The only reason why we wish to exchange thoughts is that we are different. If we were all the same, we would die dumb. No thought would be expressed after we found that our thoughts were precisely alike. We differ-our thoughts are different. Therefore the commerse that we call conversation.

Robert G. Ingersoll
Orthodox Christians have the habit of claiming all great men, all men who have held important positions, men of reputation, men of wealth. As soon as the funeral is over clergymen begin to relate imaginary conversations with the deceased, and in a very little while the great man is changed to a Christian - possibly to a saint.

Robert G. Ingersoll
Truth is the mother of joy. Truth civilizes, ennobles and purifies. The grandest ambition that can enter the soul is to know the truth.

Robert G. 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 G. Ingersoll
I am simply in favor of intellectual hospitality-that is all. You come to me with a new idea. I invite you into the house. Let us see what you have. Let us talk it over. If I do not like your thought, I will bid it a polite "good day." If I do like it, I will say: "Sit down; stay with me, and become a part of the intellectual wealth of my world."

Robert G. Ingersoll
It is told that the great Angelo, in decorating a church, painted some angels wearing sandals. A cardinal looking at the picture said to the artist: Whoever saw angels with sandals? Angelo answered with another question: Whoever saw an angel barefooted?

Robert G. Ingersoll
Certainly the Old Testament does not teach us that there is another life, and upon that question even the New is obscure and vague. The hunger of the heart finds only a few small and scattered crumbs. There is nothing definite, solid, and satisfying. United with the idea of immortality we find the absurdity of the resurrection. A prophecy that depends for its fulfillment upon an impossibility, cannot satisfy the brain or heart.

Robert G. Ingersoll
It is with men as with other things. The mullein needs only a year, but the oak a century, and the greatest men are those who have continued to grow as long as they have lived.

Robert G. Ingersoll
The laboring people should unite and should protect themselves against all idlers. You can divide mankind into two classes: the laborers and the idlers, the supporters and the supported, the honest and the dishonest. Every man is dishonest who lives upon the unpaid labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne. All laborers should be brothers.

Robert G. Ingersoll
Liberty sustains the same relation to mind that space does to matter.

Robert G. Ingersoll
TO PLOW IS TO PRAY; TO PLANT IS TO PROPHESY,
AND THE HARVEST ANSWERS AND FULFILLS.

Robert G. Ingersoll
The old man has been long at the fair. He is acquainted with the jugglers at the booths. His curiosity has been satisfied. He no longer cares for the exceptional, the monstrous, the marvelous and deformed. He looks through and beyond the gilding, the glitter and gloss, not only of things, but of conduct, of manners, theories, religions and philosophies. He sees clearer. The light no longer shines in his eyes.

Robert G. Ingersoll
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.

Robert G. Ingersoll
My principal objections to orthodox religion are two: slavery here and hell hereafter.

Robert G. Ingersoll
The churches have no confidence in each other. Why? Because they are acquainted with each other.

Robert G. Ingersoll
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 G. Ingersoll
If we should put god in the Constitution there would be no room left for man.

Robert G. Ingersoll
There is no harmony between religion and science. When science was a child, religion sought to strangle it in the cradle. Now that science has attained its youth, and superstition is in its dotage, the trembling, palsied wreck says to the athlete: "Let us be friends."

Robert G. Ingersoll
Only those who live on the labor of the ignorant are the enemies of science. Real love and real religion are in no danger from science. The more we know the safer all good things are.

Robert G. Ingersoll
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 G. Ingersoll
Only the very ignorant are perfectly satisfied that they know. To the common man the great problems are easy. He has no trouble in accounting for the universe. He can tell you the origin and destiny of man and the why and wherefore of things.

Robert G. Ingersoll
If there be an infinite Being, he does not need our help - we need not waste our energies in his defense.

Robert G. Ingersoll
One thing I do know, and that is, that neither hope, nor fear, belief, nor denial, can change the fact. It is as it is, and it will be as it must be.

Robert G. Ingersoll
Spirituality for the most part is a mask worn by idleness, arrogance and greed.

Robert G. Ingersoll
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 G. Ingersoll
When a fact can be demonstrated, force is unnecessary; when it cannot be demonstrated, force is infamous.

Robert G. Ingersoll