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The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenseless. He stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.

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
Weak
Inferiors
Strength
Lifting
Erect
Eyes
Providence
Defenseless
Eye
Superior
Bending
Others
Superiors
Shield
Men
Stands
Shields
Fallen
Inferior
Blind
Rises

More quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll

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He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction. Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the gentlest memory of our world.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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I do not believe in loving enemies I have pretty hard work to love my friends. Neither do I believe in revenge. No man can afford to keep the viper of revenge in his heart. But I believe in justice, in self-defense.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The whip degrades a severe father teaches his children to dissemble their love is pretense, and their obedience a species of self-defense. Fear is the father of lies.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Christianity has made more lunatics than it ever provided asylums for.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Would God give a bird wings and make it a crime to fly? Would he give me brains and make it a crime to think? Any God that would damn one of his children for the expression of his honest thought wouldn't make a decent thief. When I read a book and don't believe it, I ought to say so. I will do so and take the consequences like a man.
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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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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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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We have at last ascertained that miracles can be perfectly understood that there is nothing mysterious about them that they are simply transparent falsehoods.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Love your friends and be just to your enemies.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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He (Thomas Paine) saw oppression on every hand injustice everywhere hypocrisy at the altar venality on the bench, tyranny on the throne and with a splendid courage he espoused the cause of the weak against the strong
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Courage without conscience is a wild beast.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Martyrdom, as a rule, establishes the sincerity of the martyr, never the correctness of his thought. Things are true or false in themselves.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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We must remember that we have to make judges out of men, and that by being made judges their prejudices are not diminished and their intelligence is not increased.
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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Belief is not a matter of choice, but of conviction.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber dislikes a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Now the struggle for life is so sharp, competition is so severe, that few men can succeed who carry a useless burden. The businessmen of our country are compelled to lead temperate lives, otherwise their credit is gone.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The book, called the Bible, is filled with passages equally horrible, unjust and atrocious. This is the book to be read in schools in order to make our children loving, kind and gentle! This is the book they wish to be recognized in our Constitution as the source of all authority and justice!
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The only evidence, so far as I know, about another life is, first, that we have no evidence and secondly, that we are rather sorry that we have not, and wish we had.
Robert Green Ingersoll