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I found that the clergy did not understand their own book.

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
Clergy
Understand
Found
Book

More quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll

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I am simply in favor of intellectual hospitality-that is all. You come to me with a new idea. I invite you into the house. Let us see what you have. Let us talk it over. If I do not like your thought, I will bid it a polite good day. If I do like it, I will say: Sit down stay with me, and become a part of the intellectual wealth of my world.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber dislikes a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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I am going to put the Bible out of business.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Too much doubt is better than too much credulity.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Abraham Lincoln was, in my judgment, in many respects, the grandest man ever President of the United States. Upon his monument these words should be written: Here sleeps the only man in the history of the world who, having been clothed with almost absolute power, never abused it, except upon the side of mercy.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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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
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Millions of men give all their energies, as well as their very souls, for the acquisition of gold. And this will continue as long as society is ignorant enough and hypocritical enough to hold in high esteem the man of wealth without the slightest regard to the character of the man.
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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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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Nothing is greater than to break the chains from the bodies of men, nothing nobler than to destroy the phantom of the soul.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The most important thing in this world is liberty. More important than food or clothes - more important than gold or houses or lands - more important than art or science - more important than all religions, is the liberty of man.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Why should we postpone our joy to another world? Let us get all we can of the good between the cradle and the grave, all that we can of the truly dramatic. If, when death comes, that is the end, we have at least made the best of this life.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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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
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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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For myself, I have but little confidence in any business, or enterprise, or investment, that promises dividends only after the death of the stockholders.
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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What light is to the eyes - what air is to the lungs - what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Justice should remove the bandage from her eyes long enough to distinguish between the vicious and the unfortunate.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Injustice upon earth renders the justice of of heaven impossible.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The moment you introduce a despotism in the world of thought, you succeed in making hypocrites - and you get in such a position that you never know what your neighbor thinks.
Robert Green Ingersoll