Quote

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

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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
Attention
Surrounded
Common
Virtues
Pebble
Cannot
Stone
Sanctify
Stills
Draw
Pebbles
Still
Draws
Gems
May
Stones
Diamonds
Great
Remains
Defects
Virtue
Diamond

More quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll

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The more a man knows, the more willing he is to learn-the less a man knows, the more positive he is that he knows everything.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Superstition is, always has been, and forever will be, the foe of progress, the enemy of education and the assassin of freedom.
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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He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction. Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the gentlest memory of our world.
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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Fear paints pictures of ghosts and hangs them in the gallery of ignorance.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Intelligence, guided by kindness, is the highest wisdom. . . .
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Even in the business of corporations honesty is the best policy, and the companies that have acted in accordance with the highest standard, other things being equal, have reaped the richest harvest.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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By nature all people are alike, but by education become different
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 admit that books were voted in and out, and that the Bible was finally formed in accordance with a vote.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Liberty a word without which all other words are vain.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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All religions are inconsistent with mental freedom. Shakespeare is my bible, Burns my hymn-book.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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We are told in the Pentateuch, that god, the father of us all, gave thousands of maidens, after having killed their fathers, their mothers, and their brothers, to satisfy the brutal lusts of savage men. If there be a god, I pray him to write in his book, opposite my name, that I denied this lie for him.
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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I would rather live with the woman I love in a world full of trouble, than to live in heaven with nobody but men.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Only those who live on the labor of the ignorant are the enemies of science. Real love and real religion are in no danger from science. The more we know the safer all good things are.
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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The churches have no confidence in each other. Why? Because they are acquainted with each other.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Reason is the light, the sun of the brain. It is the compass of the mind, the ever-constant Northern Star, the mountain peak that lifts itself above all clouds.
Robert Green Ingersoll