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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.

Robert Green Ingersoll

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Robert Green Ingersoll
Age: 65 †
Born: 1833
Born: August 11
Died: 1899
Died: July 21
Essayist
Lawyer
Lecturer
Orator
Philosopher
Politician
Writer
Dresden
Yates County
New York
Robert Ingersoll
The Great Agnostic
Bible
Strictly
Atheism
Teachings
Follow
Testament
Teaching
Criminal
Religion
Criminals
Today
Insane
Would
Atheist
Men
Madness

More quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll

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They say: Belief is important. I say: No, actions are important. Judge by deed, not by creed.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The old lady who said there must be a devil, else how could they make pictures that looked exactly like him, reasoned like a trained theologian - like a doctor of divinity.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Every church that has a standard higher than human welfare is dangerous.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Diderot took the ground that, if orthodox religion be true Christ was guilty of suicide. Having the power to defend himself he should have used it.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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To know that the Bible is the literature of a barbarous people, to know that it is uninspired, to be certain that the supernatural does not and cannot exist - all this is but the beginning of wisdom.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Prayer is of no avail. The lightning falls on the just and the unjust in accordance with natural laws.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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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 Green Ingersoll
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Too much doubt is better than too much credulity.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The minister asks, 'What right have you to hope? It is sacrilegious to you.' But, whether the clergy like it or not, I shall always express my real opinion, and shall always be glad to say to those who mourn: 'There is in death, as I believe, nothing worse than sleep. Hope for as much better as you can.'
Robert Green Ingersoll
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They knew that it was necessary to believe these things and to love God. They knew that there could be no salvation except by faith, and through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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An infinite personality is an infinite impossibility.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Every child should be taught that useful work is worship and that intelligent labor is the highest form of prayer.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Language is not subtle enough, tender enough, to express all that we feel and when language fails, the highest and deepest longings are translated into music. Music is the sunshine - the climate - of the soul, and it floods the heart with a perfect June.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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I would rather smoke one cigar than hear two sermons.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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If the reason I give is a good one, you will act upon it. If it is a bad one I cannot make it better by piling epithet upon epithet. There is no logic in abuse there is no argument in an epithet.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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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.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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There is something wrong in a government where they who do the most have the least. There is something wrong when honesty wears a rag, and rascality a robe when the loving, the tender, east a crust, while the infamous sit at banquets.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Every sect is a certificate that God has not plainly revealed his will to man. To each reader the Bible conveys a different meaning.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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We can be as honest as we are ignorant. If we are, when asked what is beyond the horizon of the known, we must say that we do not know.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Commerce is the great civilizer. We exchange ideas when we exchange fabrics.
Robert Green Ingersoll