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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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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
Barbarians
Propose
Honestly
Atheism
Follow
Example
Knew
Better
Barbarian

More quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll

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An honest god is the noblest work of man. ... God has always resembled his creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved and he was invariably found on the side of those in power. ... Most of the gods were pleased with sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine perfume.
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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I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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No one can control his own opinion or his own belief. My belief was forced upon me by my surroundings. I am the product of all circumstances that have in any way touched me.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had the individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Nothing could be more dangerous to the existence of this Republic than to introduce religion into politics
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Orthodoxy cannot afford to put out the fires of hell.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Would God give a bird wings and make it a crime to fly? Would he give me brains and make it a crime to think? Any God that would damn one of his children for the expression of his honest thought wouldn't make a decent thief. When I read a book and don't believe it, I ought to say so. I will do so and take the consequences like a man.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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One man in the right will finally get to be a majority.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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It is told that the great Angelo, in decorating a church, painted some angels wearing sandals. A cardinal looking at the picture said to the artist: Whoever saw angels with sandals? Angelo answered with another question: Whoever saw an angel barefooted?
Robert Green Ingersoll
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If all the historic books of the Bible were blotted from the memory of mankind, nothing of value would be lost.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The book, called the Bible, is filled with passages equally horrible, unjust and atrocious. This is the book to be read in schools in order to make our children loving, kind and gentle! This is the book they wish to be recognized in our Constitution as the source of all authority and justice!
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Commerce makes friends, religion makes enemies the one enriches, and the other impoverishes the one thrives best where the truth is told, the other where falsehoods are believed.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Age after age, the strong have trampled upon the weak the crafty and heartless have ensnared and enslaved the simple and innocent, and nowhere, in all the annals of mankind, has any god succored the oppressed
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The myth of hell represents all the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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I cannot see why we should expect an infinite God to do better in another world than he does in this.
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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In all ages, hypocrites, called priests, have put crowns upon the heads of thieves, called kings.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Commerce is the great civilizer. We exchange ideas when we exchange fabrics.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The closer I'm bound in love to you, the closer I am to free.
Robert Green Ingersoll