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Progress is born of doubt and inquiry. The Church never doubts, never inquires. To doubt is heresy, to inquire is to admit that you do not know—the Church does neither.

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
Church
Inquire
Born
Heresy
Doe
Doubts
Never
Inquiry
Admit
Neither
Progress
Doubt
Inquires

More quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll

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Mental slavery is mental death, and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The more false we destroy, the more room there will be for the true.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The Catholic Church is a thousand times better than your Protestant Church upon that question [of damnation]. The Catholic Church believes in purgatory - that is, a place where a fellow can get a chance to make a motion for a new trial.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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When struck on one cheek to turn the other, is really joining a conspiracy to secure the triumph of brutality. To agree not to resist evil is to become an accomplice of all injustice.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The combined wisdom and genius of all mankind cannot possibly conceive of an argument against liberty of thought.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The man who invented the telescope found out more about heaven than the closed eyes of prayer ever discovered.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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One man in the right will finally get to be a majority.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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I am anxious to give away information, for it is only by giving it away that you can keep it. When you have told it, you remember it. It is with information as it is with liberty, the only way to be dead sure of it is to give it to other people.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Blasphemy is what an old dogma screams at a new truth.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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My principal objections to orthodox religion are two: slavery here and hell hereafter.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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All religions are inconsistent with mental freedom. Shakespeare is my bible, Burns my hymn-book.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The most important thing in this world is liberty. More important than food or clothes - more important than gold or houses or lands - more important than art or science - more important than all religions, is the liberty of man.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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I will follow my logic, no matter where it goes, after it has consulted with my heart. If you ever come to a conclusion without calling the heart in, you will come to a bad conclusion.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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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
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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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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
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Sacred are the lips from which has issued only truth.
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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Just to the extent that the Bible was appealed to in matters of science, science was retarded and just to the extent that science has been appealed to in matters of religion, religion has advanced - so that now the object of intelligent religionists is to adopt a creed that will bear the test and criticism of science.
Robert Green Ingersoll