Top 665 Quotes & Sayings by Robert Green Ingersoll
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American lawyer Robert Green Ingersoll.
Last updated on September 16, 2024.
Beauty is not all there is of poetry. It must contain the truth. It is not simply an oak, rude and grand, neither is it simply a vine. It is both. Around the oak of truth runs the vine of beauty.
The time to be happy is now, and the place to be happy is here.
The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.
Every religion in the world has denounced every other religion as a fraud. That proves to me that they all tell the truth - about others.
A great man is a torch in the darkness, a beacon in superstition's night, an inspiration and a prophecy.
In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.
If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane.
In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.
Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.
You cannot change the conclusion of the brain by torture, nor by social ostracism. But I will tell you what you can do by these and what you have done. You can make hypocrites by the million.
I say, let us think. Let each one express his thought. Let us become investigators, not followers, not cringers and crawlers. If there is in Heaven an infinite being, he never will be satisfied with the worship of cowards and hypocrites.
Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.
In spite of my surroundings, of my education, I had no love for God.
Character is made of duty and love and sympathy, and, above all, of living and working for others.
No system of religion should go in partnership with barbarism. Neither should any Christian feel it his duty to defend the savagery of the past.
Few rich men own their property; their property owns them.
They who gain applause and power by pandering to the mistakes, the prejudices and passions of the multitude are the enemies of liberty.
There can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven.
Every good government is made up of good families. The unit of good government is the family, and anything that tends to destroy the family is perfectly devilish and infamous.
Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.
The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenseless. He stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.
I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot.
When the will defies fear, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, when honor scorns to compromise with death - that is heroism.
Most people can bear adversity; but if you wish to know what a man really is give him power.
Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows.
A great man does not seek applause or place; he seeks for truth; he seeks the road to happiness, and what he ascertains, he gives to others.
You need not go back four thousand years for heroines. The world is filled with them today. They do not belong to any nation, nor to any religion, nor exclusively to any race. Wherever woman is found, they are found.
Colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed.
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.
In order to appreciate a great man, we must know his surroundings. We must understand the scope of the drama in which he played - the part he acted - and we must also know his audience.
In the presence of eternity, the mountains are as transient as the clouds.
We need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death.
The doctrine of immortality rests upon human affection. We love; therefore, we wish to live.
In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.
Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.
What is it that distinguishes you and me from the lower animals - from the beasts? More, I say, than anything else, human sympathy - human sympathy.
In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.
Happiness is the legal-tender of the soul. Joy is wealth.
No writer must be measured by a word or paragraph. He is to be measured by his work - by the tendency, not of one line, but by the tendency of all.
Surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and depth; that there are no walls nor fences, nor prohibited places, nor sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought.
Voltaire! A name that excites the admiration of men, the malignity of priests. Pronounce that name in the presence of a clergyman, and you will find that you have made a declaration of war.
Whoever labors for the happiness of those he loves elevates himself, no matter whether he works in the dreary shop or the perfumed field.
Until every soul is freely permitted to investigate every book and creed and dogma for itself, the world cannot be free.
Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself.
Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.
It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.
I would rather live and love where death is king than have eternal life where love is not.
If there is any God, there is only one way to please him, and that is by a conscientious discharge of your obligations to your fellow men.
When you go home, fill the house with joy so that the light of it will stream out the windows and doors and illuminate even the darkness. It is just as easy that way as any in the world.
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.
The more liberty you give away the more you will have.
An honest God is the noblest work of man.
It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had the individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions.
Neutrality is generally used as a mask to hide unusual bitterness. Sometimes it hides what it is - nothing. It always stands for hollowness of head or bitterness of heart, sometimes for both.
Every man is dishonest who lives upon the labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne.
Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.
Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.
If matter cannot be destroyed, cannot be annihilated, it could not have been created. The indestructible must be uncreatable.
Courage without conscience is a wild beast.
There is no slavery but ignorance.
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