Quote

The record of a generous life runs like a vine around the memory of our dead, and every sweet unselfish act is now a perfumed flower.

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
Memories
Caring
Running
Generous
Around
Memory
Every
Record
Perfumed
Life
Flower
Vine
Like
Sweet
Vines
Records
Unselfish
Dead
Runs

More quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll

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It is with men as with other things. The mullein needs only a year, but the oak a century, and the greatest men are those who have continued to grow as long as they have lived.
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One good schoolmaster is worth a thousand priests.
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In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.
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I read the other day an account of a meeting between John Knox and John Calvin. Imagine a dialogue between a pestilence and a famine!
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Above all things, one should maintain his self-respect, and there is but one way to do that, and that is to live in accordance with your highest ideal.
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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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So, ministers say that they teach charity. This is natural. They live on alms. All beggars teach that others should give.
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We are not accountable for the sins of Adam.
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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.
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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.
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And yet this same Deity says to me, resist not evil pray for those that despitefully use you love your enemies, but I will eternally damn mine. It seems to me that even gods should practice what they preach.
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If the reason I give is a good one, you will act upon it. If it is a bad one I cannot make it better by piling epithet upon epithet. There is no logic in abuse there is no argument in an epithet.
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It is grander to think and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed.
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As we become civilized we are governed less by persons and more by principles. . . . The best of all leaders is the man who teaches people to lead themselves.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Do right, not to deny yourself but because you love yourself and because you love others.
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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The present is the necessary product of all the past, the necessary cause of all the future.
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.
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Only a few years ago there was no person too ignorant to successfully answer Charles Darwin and the more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task.
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He [The Improved Man] will enjoy not only the sunshine of life, but will bear with fortitude the darkest days. He will have no fear of death. About the grave, there will be no terrors, and his life will end as serenely as the sun rises.
Robert Green Ingersoll