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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

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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
Making
Hypocrite
Moments
Introducing
Thought
Neighbor
Never
Thinks
Thinking
Atheism
World
Succeed
Hypocrites
Position
Despotism
Moment
Introduce

More quotes by 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 churches have no confidence in each other. Why? Because they are acquainted with each other.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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I know of no crime that has not been defended by the church, in one form or other. The church is not a pioneer it accepts a new truth, last of all, and only when denial has become useless.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The man who invented the telescope found out more about heaven than the closed eyes of prayer ever discovered.
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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I read the other day an account of a meeting between John Knox and John Calvin. Imagine a dialogue between a pestilence and a famine!
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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As long as a man lives he should study. Death alone has the right to dismiss the school.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Ignorance is the worst form of slavery. (Paraphrased)
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-and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word. But in the night of Death Hope sees a star and listening Love can hear the rustling of a wing.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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I believe that there is something far nobler than loyalty to any particular man. Loyalty to the truth as we perceive it - loyalty to our duty as we know it - loyalty to the ideals of our brain and heart - is, to my mind, far greater and far nobler than loyalty to the life of any particular man or God. . . .
Robert Green Ingersoll
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God so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn a large majority of the human race.
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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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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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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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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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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It is impossible for me to conceive of a character more utterly detestable than that of the Hebrew god.
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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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