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Only those who live on the labor of the ignorant are the enemies of science. Real love and real religion are in no danger from science. The more we know the safer all good things are.

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
Enemy
Religion
Science
Live
Safer
Real
Enemies
Good
Ignorant
Things
Labor
Love
Danger

More quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll

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Reason is the light, the sun of the brain. It is the compass of the mind, the ever-constant Northern Star, the mountain peak that lifts itself above all clouds.
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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Let us agree not to step on each other’s feet.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Great virtues may draw attention from defects, they cannot sanctify them. A pebble surrounded by diamonds remains a common stone, and a diamond surrounded by pebbles is still a gem.
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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I am anxious to give away information, for it is only by giving it away that you can keep it. When you have told it, you remember it. It is with information as it is with liberty, the only way to be dead sure of it is to give it to other people.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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I would rather be a beggar and spend my money like a king, than be a king and spend money like a beggar.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The church teaches us that we can make God happy by being miserable ourselves.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Liberty cannot be sacrificed for the sake of temperance, for the sake of morality, or for the sake of anything. It is of more value than everything. Yet some people would destroy the sun to prevent the growth of weeds. Liberty sustains the same relation to all the virtues that the sun does to life.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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I believe in the gospel of cheerfulness, the gospel of Good Nature the gospel of Good Health. Let us pay some attention to our bodies. Take care of our bodies, and our souls will take care of themselves.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Shakespeare has done far more for the world than the Bible.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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All religious systems enslave the mind. Certain things are demanded-certain things must be believed-certain things must be done-and the man who becomes the subject or servant of this superstition must give up all idea of indivuality or hope of intellectual growth or progress.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Everyone should be taught the nobility of labor, the heroism and splendor of honest effort. As long as it is considered disgraceful to labor, or aristocratic not to labor, the world will be filled with idleness and crime, and with every possible moral deformity.
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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Now the struggle for life is so sharp, competition is so severe, that few men can succeed who carry a useless burden. The businessmen of our country are compelled to lead temperate lives, otherwise their credit is gone.
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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If we have the right to use our reason, we certainly have the right to act in accordance with it, and no god can have the right to punish us for such action
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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Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The Christians say, that among the ancient Jews, if you committed a crime you had to kill a sheep. Now they say 'charge it.' 'Put it on the slate.' The Savior will pay it. In this way, rascality is sold on credit, and the credit system in morals, as in business, breeds extravagance.
Robert Green Ingersoll