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Liberty is the condition of progress. Without Liberty, there remains only barbarism. Without Liberty, there can be no civilization.

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
Liberty
Without
Barbarism
Condition
Remains
Civilization
Conditions
Progress

More quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll

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The old lady who said there must be a devil, else how could they make pictures that looked exactly like him, reasoned like a trained theologian - like a doctor of divinity.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Cruelty hardens and degrades, kindness reforms and ennobles.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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We do not need the forgiveness of God, but of each other and of ourselves.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The whip degrades a severe father teaches his children to dissemble their love is pretense, and their obedience a species of self-defense. Fear is the father of lies.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men.
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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You cannot be so poor that you cannot help somebody.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The present is the necessary product of all the past, the necessary cause of all the future.
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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The few took advantage of the ignorant many. They pretended to have received messages from the Unknown. They stood between the helpless multitude and the gods. They were the carriers of flags of truce. At the court of heaven they presented the cause of man, and upon the labor of the deceived they lived.
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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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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God so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn a large majority of the human race.
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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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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It is impossible for me to conceive of a character more utterly detestable than that of the Hebrew god.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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It is better to deserve without receiving than to receive without deserving
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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Laughing has always been considered by theologians as a crime.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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It is told that the great Angelo, in decorating a church, painted some angels wearing sandals. A cardinal looking at the picture said to the artist: Whoever saw angels with sandals? Angelo answered with another question: Whoever saw an angel barefooted?
Robert Green Ingersoll