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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
Atheism
Teachings
Follow
Testament
Teaching
Criminal
Religion
Criminals
Today
Insane
Would
Atheist
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More quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll
I am simply in favor of intellectual hospitality-that is all. You come to me with a new idea. I invite you into the house. Let us see what you have. Let us talk it over. If I do not like your thought, I will bid it a polite good day. If I do like it, I will say: Sit down stay with me, and become a part of the intellectual wealth of my world.
Robert Green Ingersoll
He who dishonors himself [by lying about his opinions] for the sake of being honored by others will find that two mistakes have been made - one by himself, and the other, by the people.
Robert Green Ingersoll
Commerce is the great civilizer.
Robert Green Ingersoll
If priests had not been fond of mutton, lambs never would have been sacrified to god. Nothing was ever carried to the temple that the priest could not use, and it always happened that god wanted what his agents liked.
Robert Green Ingersoll
Grant others the same rights as you claim for yourself.
Robert Green Ingersoll
Intelligence, guided by kindness, is the highest wisdom. . . .
Robert Green Ingersoll
Liberty cannot be sacrificed for the sake of temperance, for the sake of morality, or for the sake of anything. It is of more value than everything. Yet some people would destroy the sun to prevent the growth of weeds. Liberty sustains the same relation to all the virtues that the sun does to life.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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
It is grander to think and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed.
Robert Green Ingersoll
If we have the right to use our reason, we certainly have the right to act in accordance with it, and no god can have the right to punish us for such action
Robert Green Ingersoll
If there is one subject in this world worthy of being discussed, worthy of being understood, it is the question of intellectual liberty. Without that, we are simply painted clay.
Robert Green Ingersoll
Liberty is the condition of progress. Without Liberty, there remains only barbarism. Without Liberty, there can be no civilization.
Robert Green Ingersoll
Great virtues may draw attention from defects, they cannot sanctify them. A pebble surrounded by diamonds remains a common stone, and a diamond surrounded by pebbles is still a gem.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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.
Robert Green Ingersoll
Science built the Academy, superstition the Inquisition.
Robert Green Ingersoll
All religions are inconsistent with mental freedom. Shakespeare is my bible, Burns my hymn-book.
Robert Green Ingersoll
My principal objections to orthodox religion are two: slavery here and hell hereafter.
Robert Green Ingersoll
There is only one way to be happy, and that is to make somebody else so, and you cannot be happy by going cross lots you have got to go the regular turnpike road.
Robert Green Ingersoll
The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know.
Robert Green Ingersoll
The Christians say, that among the ancient Jews, if you committed a crime you had to kill a sheep. Now they say 'charge it.' 'Put it on the slate.' The Savior will pay it. In this way, rascality is sold on credit, and the credit system in morals, as in business, breeds extravagance.
Robert Green Ingersoll