Quote

The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know.

Robert Green Ingersoll

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Undesirable
Clergy
Atheist

More quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll

Image
Laughing has always been considered by theologians as a crime.
Robert Green Ingersoll
Image
the inventor of the plow did more good than the maker of the first rosary - because, say what you will, plowing is better than praying.
Robert Green Ingersoll
Image
Insolence is not logic epithets are the arguments of malice.
Robert Green Ingersoll
Image
Truth is the mother of joy. Truth civilizes, ennobles and purifies. The grandest ambition that can enter the soul is to know the truth.
Robert Green Ingersoll
Image
Orthodoxy cannot afford to put out the fires of hell.
Robert Green Ingersoll
Image
If nobody has too much, everybody will have enough.
Robert Green Ingersoll
Image
Liberty cannot be sacrificed for the sake of anything.
Robert Green Ingersoll
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Great virtues may draw attention from defects, they cannot sanctify them. A pebble surrounded by diamonds remains a common stone, and a diamond surrounded by pebbles is still a gem.
Robert Green Ingersoll
Image
No man of sense in the whole world believes in devils any more than he does in mermaids, vampires, gorgons, hydras, naiads, dryads, nymphs, fairies, the Fountain of Youth, [or] the Philosopher's Stone. . . .
Robert Green Ingersoll
Image
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
Image
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
Image
It is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of the dead.
Robert Green Ingersoll
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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-and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word. But in the night of Death Hope sees a star and listening Love can hear the rustling of a wing.
Robert Green Ingersoll
Image
Only a few years ago there was no person too ignorant to successfully answer Charles Darwin and the more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task.
Robert Green Ingersoll
Image
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
Image
If we are immortal, it is a fact of nature, and that fact does not depend on bibles, on Christs, priest, or creeds.
Robert Green Ingersoll