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If there be an infinite Being, he does not need our help - we need not waste our energies in his defense.

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
Helping
Doe
Energies
Need
Defense
Needs
Atheism
Infinite
Waste
Help
Energy

More quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll

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It is grander to think and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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If the reason I give is a good one, you will act upon it. If it is a bad one I cannot make it better by piling epithet upon epithet. There is no logic in abuse there is no argument in an epithet.
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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Every human being should be taught that his first duty is to take care of himself, and that to be self-respecting he must be self-supporting. To live on the labor of others, either by force which enslaves, or by cunning which robs, or by borrowing or begging, is wholly dishonorable. Every man should be taught some useful art.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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He [The Improved Man] will enjoy not only the sunshine of life, but will bear with fortitude the darkest days. He will have no fear of death. About the grave, there will be no terrors, and his life will end as serenely as the sun rises.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Courage without conscience is a wild beast.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Sacred are the lips from which has issued only truth.
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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If, with all the time at my disposal, with all the wealth of the resources of this vast universe, to do with as I will, I could not produce a better scheme of life than now prevails, I would be ashamed of my efforts and consider my work a humiliating failure.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The intellectual advancement of man depends on how often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth.
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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When a fact can be demonstrated, force is unnecessary when it cannot be demonstrated, force is infamous.
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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Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers: It is the only prayer that deserves an answer—good, honest, noble work.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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They knew that it was necessary to believe these things and to love God. They knew that there could be no salvation except by faith, and through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The ministers, who preached at these revivals, were in earnest. They were zealous and sincere. They were not philosophers. To them science was the name of a vague dread - a dangerous enemy. They did not know much, but they believed a great deal.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Had he been willing to live a hypocrite, he would have been respectable, he at least could have died surrounded by other hypocrites, and at his death there would have been an imposing funeral, with miles of carriages, filled with hypocrites, and above his hypocritical dust there would have been a hypocritical monument covered with lies.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.
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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I hate above all things a cross man. What right has he to murder the sunshine of a day? What right has he to assassinate the Joy of life? When you go home, you ought to go like a ray of light-so that it will, even in the night, burst out of the doors and windows and illuminate the darkness.
Robert Green Ingersoll