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
fashion heirs opinion
For the most part we inherit our opinions. We are the heirs of habits and mental customs. Our beliefs, like the fashion of our garments, depend on where we were born. We are molded and fashioned by our surroundings.
religious philosophy race
The church in all ages and among all peoples has been the consistent enemy of the human race. Everywhere and at all times, it has opposed the liberty of thought and expression. It has been the sworn enemy of investigation and intellectual development. It has denied the existence of facts, the tendency of which was to undermine its power. It has always been carrying fagots to the feet of Philosophy. It has erected the gallows for Genius. It has built the dungeon for Thinkers.
heart perfect mind
In making up my mind as to what Mr. Lincoln really believed, I do not take into consideration the evidence of unnamed persons or the contents of anonymous letters; I take the testimony of those who knew and loved him, of those to whom he opened his heart and to whom he spoke in the freedom of perfect confidence.
abuse doe argument
Epithets are not arguments. Abuse does not persuade.
years catholic atheism
Twenty years after the death of Luther there were more Catholics than when he was born. And twenty years after the death of Voltaire there were millions less than when he was born.
father real son
You cannot show real respect to your parents by perpetuating their errors.... Do you consider that the inventor of a steel plow cast a slur upon his father who scratched the ground with a wooden one? I do not consider that an invention by the son is a slander upon the father; I regard each invention simply as an improvement; and every father should be exceedingly proud of an ingenious son. If Mr. Talmage has a son, it will be impossible for him to honor his father except by differing with him.
mean rights government
The emblem of equal rights. It means free hands, free lips, self- government, and the sovereignty of the individual.
intellectual progress infidel
The history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of infidels.
men atheism strange
Strange but true: those who have loved God most have loved men least.
atheism pestilence imagine
I read the other day an account of a meeting between John Knox and John Calvin. Imagine a dialogue between a pestilence and a famine!
mother children father
On every hand there seems to be design to defeat design. If God created man - if he is the father of us all, why did he make the criminals, the insane, the deformed and idiotic? Should the mother, who clasps to her breast an idiot child, thank God?
lying hypocrite dust
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.
plowing firsts rosary
the inventor of the plow did more good than the maker of the first rosary - because, say what you will, plowing is better than praying.
prayer eye men
The man who invented the telescope found out more about heaven than the closed eyes of prayer ever discovered.