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Belief is not a matter of choice, but of conviction.

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
Conviction
Choice
Choices
Belief
Matter

More quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll

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We have at last ascertained that miracles can be perfectly understood that there is nothing mysterious about them that they are simply transparent falsehoods.
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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Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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If I had my way I'd make health catching instead of disease.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether it is or is not a fact. A lie will not fit anything except another lie.
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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There will never be a generation of great men until there has been a generation of free women - of free mothers.
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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It is with men as with other things. The mullein needs only a year, but the oak a century, and the greatest men are those who have continued to grow as long as they have lived.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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For the most part we inherit our opinions. We are the heirs of habits and mental customs. Our beliefs, like the fashion of our garments, depend on where we were born. We are molded and fashioned by our surroundings.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Catholicism is contrary to human liberty. Catholicism bases salvation upon belief. Catholicism teaches man to trample his reason under foot. And for that reason it is wrong.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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To know that the Bible is the literature of a barbarous people, to know that it is uninspired, to be certain that the supernatural does not and cannot exist - all this is but the beginning of wisdom.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The doctrine of eternal punishment is in perfect harmony with the savagery of the men who made the orthodox creeds. It is in harmony with torture, with flaying alive, and with burnings.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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An infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures. Certainly he ought not so to act that laws become necessary to keep him from being laughed at. No one thinks of protecting Shakespeare from ridicule, by the threat of fine and imprisonment.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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They knew no better, but I do not propose to follow the example of a barbarian because he was honestly a barbarian.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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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
Robert Green Ingersoll
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As far as I am concerned I wish to be out on the high seas. I wish to take my chances with wind, and wave, and star. And I had rather go down in the glory and grandeur of the storm, than rot in any orthodox harbor.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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In making up my mind as to what Mr. Lincoln really believed, I do not take into consideration the evidence of unnamed persons or the contents of anonymous letters I take the testimony of those who knew and loved him, of those to whom he opened his heart and to whom he spoke in the freedom of perfect confidence.
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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Custom meets us at the cradle and leaves us only at the tomb.
Robert Green Ingersoll