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Ignorance worships mystery reason explains it the one grovels, the other soars.

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
Explains
Soar
Atheism
Worship
Ignorance
Mystery
Religion
Soars
Reason
Worships

More quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll

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Whoever saw an angel barefooted?
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Cruelty hardens and degrades, kindness reforms and ennobles.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Argument cannot be answered with insults. Kindness is strength anger blows out the lamp of the mind.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The only reason why we wish to exchange thoughts is that we are different. If we were all the same, we would die dumb. No thought would be expressed after we found that our thoughts were precisely alike. We differ-our thoughts are different. Therefore the commerse that we call conversation.
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.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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With soap, baptism is a good thing.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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the inventor of the plow did more good than the maker of the first rosary - because, say what you will, plowing is better than praying.
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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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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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 Christians say, that among the ancient Jews, if you committed a crime you had to kill a sheep. Now they say 'charge it.' 'Put it on the slate.' The Savior will pay it. In this way, rascality is sold on credit, and the credit system in morals, as in business, breeds extravagance.
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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If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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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.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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We are not accountable for the sins of Adam.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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When passions and appetites are stronger than the intellect, men are savages when the intellect governs the passions, when the passions are servants, men are civilized. The people need education - facts - philosophy.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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An infinite God ought to be able to protect Himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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We are told in the Pentateuch, that god, the father of us all, gave thousands of maidens, after having killed their fathers, their mothers, and their brothers, to satisfy the brutal lusts of savage men. If there be a god, I pray him to write in his book, opposite my name, that I denied this lie for him.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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If there is a God, there should be no slaves.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether it is or is not a fact. A lie will not fit anything except another lie.
Robert Green Ingersoll