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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.

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
Firsts
Support
First
Help
Believe
Helping
Surplus
Really
Next
Believes
Men
Others
Helped
Money
Burden
Become
Deserve
Doe
Duty

More quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll

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Darwin has done more to change human thought than all the priests who have existed.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Nothing could be more dangerous to the existence of this Republic than to introduce religion into politics
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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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
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Burns had his faults, his frailties. He was intensely human. Still, I would rather appear at the Judgment Seat drunk, and be able to say that I was the author of A man's a man for 'a that, than to be perfectly sober and admit that I had lived and died a Scotch Presbyterian.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Strange but true: those who have loved God most have loved men least.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Why should we postpone our joy to another world? Let us get all we can of the good between the cradle and the grave, all that we can of the truly dramatic. If, when death comes, that is the end, we have at least made the best of this life.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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On every hand there seems to be design to defeat design. If God created man - if he is the father of us all, why did he make the criminals, the insane, the deformed and idiotic? Should the mother, who clasps to her breast an idiot child, thank God?
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Every church that has a standard higher than human welfare is dangerous.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Intellect, without heart, is infinitely cruel. . . .
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Some president wishes to be re-elected, and thereupon speaks about the Bible as the corner-stone of American Liberty. This sentence is a mouth large enough to swallow any church, and from that time forward the religious people will be citing that remark of the politician to substantiate the inspiration of the Scriptures.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Music was born of love. Had there never been any human affection, there never could have been uttered a strain of music.
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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Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to joy, and makes right royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The churches have no confidence in each other. Why? Because they are acquainted with each other.
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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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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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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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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The myth of hell represents all the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable.
Robert Green Ingersoll