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
art crime cruelty destroy enemies freedom great left outrage practiced rewarded rights undone virtue
Nothing has been left undone by the enemies of freedom. Every art and artifice, every cruelty and outrage has been practiced and perpetrated to destroy the rights of man. In this great struggle, every crime has been rewarded and every virtue has been punished.
man nature
Man never had an idea - man will never have an idea, except those supplied to him by his surroundings. Every idea in the world that man has came to him by nature.
kings people shakespeare successful thus treated
Kings had their clowns, the people their actors and musicians. Shakespeare was scheduled as a servant. It is thus that successful stupidity has always treated genius.
defend duty neither religion system
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.
creates filled nature tendencies
Nature is filled with tendencies and obstructions. Extremes beget limitations, even as a river by its own swiftness creates obstructions for itself.
love people
Most people are Democrats because they hate something; most people are Republicans because they love something.
government officers servants simply
Many Americans do not understand that the officers of the government are simply the servants of the people.
people
It is what people do not know that they persecute each other about.
air eyes liberty light love lungs soul
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.
forever form great impossible produce
It always has been and forever will be impossible for slavery or any kind or form of injustice to produce a great poet.
born buried deeds grave hold men passions prejudices scales weighed
In the grave should be buried the prejudices and passions born of conflict. Charity should hold the scales in which are weighed the deeds of men.
education god love spite
In spite of my surroundings, of my education, I had no love for God.
age books governing opposed works
In every age in which books have been produced, the governing class, the respectable, have been opposed to the works of real genius.
certain eats idleness man obligation
I think the man who eats the bread of idleness is under a certain obligation to speak well of labor.