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Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains.

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
Vacuum
Remains
Unreasonable
Impossible
Supernatural
Religious
Agnostic
Church
Miraculous
Unknowable
Religion
Secular
Atheistic
Nothing
Absurd
Incomprehensible
Take
Atheist
Vacuums

More quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll

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It is hard to overstate the debt we owe to the men and women of genius.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Religion supports nobody. It has to be supported. It produces no wheat, no corn it ploughs no land it fells no forests. It is a perpetual mendicant. It lives on the labors of others, and then has the arrogance to pretend that it supports the giver.
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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It cannot be too often repeated, that truth scorns the assistance of miracle.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves.
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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I hate above all things a cross man. What right has he to murder the sunshine of a day? What right has he to assassinate the Joy of life? When you go home, you ought to go like a ray of light-so that it will, even in the night, burst out of the doors and windows and illuminate the darkness.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud-and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word. But in the night of Death Hope sees a star and listening Love can hear the rustling of a wing.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Secularism is a religion, a religion that is understood. It has no mysteries, no mumblings, no priests, no ceremonies, no falsehoods, no miracles, and no persecutions.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world who believes in the Garden of Eden story? If you find any man who believes it, strike his forehead and you will hear an echo. Something is for rent.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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There are some truths, however, that we should never forget: Superstition has always been the relentless enemy of science faith has been a hater of demonstration hypocrisy has been sincere only in its dread of truth, and all religions are inconsistent with mental freedom.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Civilization has gotten further and further from the so-called 'natural' man, who uses all his faculties: perception, invention, improvisation.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Talent has the four seasons: spring, that is to say, the sowing of the seeds summer, growth autumn, the harvest winter, intellectual death. But there is now and then a genius who has no winter, and, no matter how many years he may live, on the blossom of his thought no snow falls. Genius has the climate of perpetual growth.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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No one can control his own opinion or his own belief. My belief was forced upon me by my surroundings. I am the product of all circumstances that have in any way touched me.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Love your friends and be just to your enemies.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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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?
Robert Green Ingersoll
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I believe that there is something far nobler than loyalty to any particular man. Loyalty to the truth as we perceive it - loyalty to our duty as we know it - loyalty to the ideals of our brain and heart - is, to my mind, far greater and far nobler than loyalty to the life of any particular man or God. . . .
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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In all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. They have worshiped their destroyers they have canonized the most gigantic liars, and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. Under the loftiest monuments sleeps the dust of murder.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The first duty of man is to support himself - to see to it that he does not become a burden. His next duty is to help others if he has a surplus, and if he really believes they deserve to be helped.
Robert Green Ingersoll