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Secularism is a religion, a religion that is understood. It has no mysteries, no mumblings, no priests, no ceremonies, no falsehoods, no miracles, and no persecutions.

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
Mystery
Ceremonies
Understood
Ceremony
Religion
Persecution
Mysteries
Falsehood
Miracles
Persecutions
Priests
Falsehoods
Miracle
Secularism

More quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll

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Language is not subtle enough, tender enough, to express all that we feel and when language fails, the highest and deepest longings are translated into music. Music is the sunshine - the climate - of the soul, and it floods the heart with a perfect June.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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One thing I do know, and that is, that neither hope, nor fear, belief, nor denial, can change the fact. It is as it is, and it will be as it must be.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber dislikes a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness.
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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It is grander to think and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Every sect is a certificate that God has not plainly revealed his will to man. To each reader the Bible conveys a different meaning.
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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[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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If this religion is true, then there is only one Savior, only one narrow path to life. Christianity cannot live in peace with any other religion.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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When struck on one cheek to turn the other, is really joining a conspiracy to secure the triumph of brutality. To agree not to resist evil is to become an accomplice of all injustice.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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You see, after all, few rich men own their property. The property owns them.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The minister asks, 'What right have you to hope? It is sacrilegious to you.' But, whether the clergy like it or not, I shall always express my real opinion, and shall always be glad to say to those who mourn: 'There is in death, as I believe, nothing worse than sleep. Hope for as much better as you can.'
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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As long as a man lives he should study. Death alone has the right to dismiss the school.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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All religious systems enslave the mind. Certain things are demanded-certain things must be believed-certain things must be done-and the man who becomes the subject or servant of this superstition must give up all idea of indivuality or hope of intellectual growth or progress.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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If the world ever advances beyond what it is today, it must be led by men who express their real opinions.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Shakespeare has done far more for the world than the Bible.
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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There is no harmony between religion and science. When science was a child, religion sought to strangle it in the cradle. Now that science has attained its youth, and superstition is in its dotage, the trembling, palsied wreck says to the athlete: Let us be friends.
Robert Green Ingersoll