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Every church that has a standard higher than human welfare is dangerous.

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
Human
Standard
Humans
Welfare
Every
Standards
Atheism
Higher
Dangerous
Church
Religion

More quotes by 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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We are not accountable for the sins of Adam.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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If there be gods we cannot help them, but we can assist our fellow men. We cannot love the inconceivable, but we can love wife and child and friend.
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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What light is to the eyes - what air is to the lungs - what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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When a fact can be demonstrated, force is unnecessary when it cannot be demonstrated, force is infamous.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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[T]he blossom of benevolence, of charity, is the fairest flower, no matter whether it blooms by the side of a hovel, or bursts from a vine climbing the marble pillar of a palace. I respect no man because he is rich I hold in contempt no man because he is poor.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Only those who live on the labor of the ignorant are the enemies of science. Real love and real religion are in no danger from science. The more we know the safer all good things are.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Abraham Lincoln was, in my judgment, in many respects, the grandest man ever President of the United States. Upon his monument these words should be written: Here sleeps the only man in the history of the world who, having been clothed with almost absolute power, never abused it, except upon the side of mercy.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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I would rather be a beggar and spend my money like a king, than be a king and spend money like a beggar.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The Church has always been willing to swap off treasures in heaven for cash down.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The good part of Christmas is not always Christian -- it is generally Pagan that is to say, human, natural.
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 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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Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Liberty cannot be sacrificed for the sake of temperance, for the sake of morality, or for the sake of anything. It is of more value than everything. Yet some people would destroy the sun to prevent the growth of weeds. Liberty sustains the same relation to all the virtues that the sun does to life.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The man who finds a truth lights a torch.
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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Creationists use facts the same way a drunk uses a lightpost: for support instead of illumination
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
Robert Green Ingersoll