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No one infers a god from the simple, from the known, from what is understood, but from the complex, from the unknown, and incomprehensible. Our ignorance is God what we know is science.

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
Ignorance
Understood
Known
Simple
Science
Incomprehensible
Unknown
Complexes
Complex

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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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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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
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By physical liberty I mean the right to do anything which does not interfere with the happiness of another. By intellectual liberty I mean the right to think and the right to think wrong.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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I would not for my life destroy one star of human hope, but I want it so that when a poor woman rocks the cradle and sings a lullaby to the dimpled darling, she will not be compelled to believe that ninety-nine chances in a hundred she is raising kindling wood for hell.
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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To give up your individuality is to annihilate yourself.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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I am not so much for the freedom of religion as I am for the religion of freedom.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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It is labor that has made the world a fit habitation for the human race.
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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As far as I am concerned I wish to be out on the high seas. I wish to take my chances with wind, and wave, and star. And I had rather go down in the glory and grandeur of the storm, than rot in any orthodox harbor.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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In making up my mind as to what Mr. Lincoln really believed, I do not take into consideration the evidence of unnamed persons or the contents of anonymous letters I take the testimony of those who knew and loved him, of those to whom he opened his heart and to whom he spoke in the freedom of perfect confidence.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Even in the business of corporations honesty is the best policy, and the companies that have acted in accordance with the highest standard, other things being equal, have reaped the richest harvest.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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It is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of the dead.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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It is better to deserve without receiving than to receive without deserving
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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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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Intellect, without heart, is infinitely cruel. . . . So that, after all, the real aristocracy must be that of goodness where the intellect is directed by the heart.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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For myself, I have but little confidence in any business, or enterprise, or investment, that promises dividends only after the death of the stockholders.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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I believe in the gospel of cheerfulness, the gospel of Good Nature the gospel of Good Health. Let us pay some attention to our bodies. Take care of our bodies, and our souls will take care of themselves.
Robert Green Ingersoll