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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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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
Men
Leadership
People
Leader
Principles
Teach
Governed
Less
Teaches
Become
Civilized
Persons
Leaders
Best
Lead

More quotes by 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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The Church has always been willing to swap off treasures in heaven for cash down.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be believed only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called faith.
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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We must remember that we have to make judges out of men, and that by being made judges their prejudices are not diminished and their intelligence is not increased.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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They knew no better, but I do not propose to follow the example of a barbarian because he was honestly a barbarian.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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I admit that books were voted in and out, and that the Bible was finally formed in accordance with a vote.
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
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Nothing is greater than to break the chains from the bodies of men, nothing nobler than to destroy the phantom of the soul.
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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The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenseless. He stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Honesty is the mother of confidence it unites, combines and solidifies society. Dishonesty is disintegration it destroys confidence it brings social chaos. . . .
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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He who dishonors himself [by lying about his opinions] for the sake of being honored by others will find that two mistakes have been made - one by himself, and the other, by the people.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Age after age, the strong have trampled upon the weak the crafty and heartless have ensnared and enslaved the simple and innocent, and nowhere, in all the annals of mankind, has any god succored the oppressed
Robert Green Ingersoll
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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!
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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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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Religion supports nobody. It has to be supported. It produces no wheat, no corn it ploughs no land it fells no forests. It is a perpetual mendicant. It lives on the labors of others, and then has the arrogance to pretend that it supports the giver.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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You cannot be so poor that you cannot help somebody.
Robert Green Ingersoll