Robert Green Ingersoll
Robert Green Ingersoll
Robert Green "Bob" Ingersollwas an American lawyer, a Civil War veteran, political leader, and orator of the United States during the Golden Age of Free Thought, noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of agnosticism. He was nicknamed "The Great Agnostic"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionLawyer
Date of Birth11 August 1833
CountryUnited States of America
sacred lips
Sacred are the lips from which has issued only truth.
space mind liberty
Liberty sustains the same relation to mind that space does to matter.
imagine contempt
Whoever imagines himself a favorite with God holds others in contempt.
god men honest
An honest God is the noblest work of man.
love kings queens
Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to joy, and makes right royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods.
kings philosophy years
Years should not be devoted to the acquisition of dead languages or to the study of history which, for the most part, is a detailed account of things that never occurred. It is useless to fill the individual with dates of great battles, with the births and deaths of kings. They should be taught the philosophy of history, the growth of nations, of philosophies, theories, and, above all, of the sciences.
fashion vulgarity-is clothes
The undressed is vulgar; the nude is pure, and the well-dressed tainted.
fall political humanity
If the money is raised by taxation, then the burden will fall where it ought to fall, . . . and the rich and stingy will no longer be able to evade the duties of citizenship and of humanity.
heart humanist intellect
Intellect, without heart, is infinitely cruel. . . .
kindness humanist highest
Intelligence, guided by kindness, is the highest wisdom. . . .
men hands clouds
There is no evidence that God ever interfered in the affairs of man. The hand of earth is stretched uselessly towards heaven. From the clouds there comes no help.
mind tasks boards
To destroy guide-boards that point in the wrong direction . . . to drive the fiend of fear from the mind . . . is the task of the Freethinker.
wise gratitude hero
My heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain . . . to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still.
hate believe men
If a man really believes that God once upheld slavery; that he commanded soldiers to kill women and babes; that he believed in polygamy; that he persecuted for opinion's sake; that he will punish forever, and that he hates an unbeliever, the effect in my judgment will be bad. It always has been bad. This belief built the dungeons of the Inquisition. This belief made the Puritan murder the Quaker.