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If the Bible is true, it needs no inspiration, and - if not true, inspiration can do it no good.

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
Bible
Inspiration
True
Needs
Good

More quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll

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We are all children of the same mother, and the same fate awaits us all. We, too, have our religion, and it is this: Help for the living-Hope for the dead.
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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The Church has always been willing to swap off treasures in heaven for cash down.
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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Commerce is the great civilizer. We exchange ideas when we exchange fabrics.
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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Liberty a word without which all other words are vain.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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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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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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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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I know of no crime that has not been defended by the church, in one form or other. The church is not a pioneer it accepts a new truth, last of all, and only when denial has become useless.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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It is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of the dead.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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As more people become more intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Progress is born of doubt and inquiry. The Church never doubts, never inquires. To doubt is heresy, to inquire is to admit that you do not know—the Church does neither.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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But honest men do not pretend to know they are candid and sincere they love the truth they admit their ignorance, and they say, We do not know.
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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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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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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In all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. They have worshiped their destroyers they have canonized the most gigantic liars, and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. Under the loftiest monuments sleeps the dust of murder.
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