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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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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
Opinion
Habits
Belief
Depend
Molded
Born
Opinions
Inherit
Part
Beliefs
Heirs
Like
Mental
Garments
Habit
Fashioned
Depends
Surroundings
Fashion
Customs

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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He loves his country best who strives to make it best.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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If there is a God, there should be no slaves.
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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The old lady who said there must be a devil, else how could they make pictures that looked exactly like him, reasoned like a trained theologian - like a doctor of divinity.
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 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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It is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of the dead.
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 glory of science is, that it is freeing the soul, breaking the mental manacles, getting the brain out of bondage, giving courage to thought, filling the world with mercy, justice, and joy.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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There are some truths, however, that we should never forget: Superstition has always been the relentless enemy of science faith has been a hater of demonstration hypocrisy has been sincere only in its dread of truth, and all religions are inconsistent with mental freedom.
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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The first duty of man is to support himself - to see to it that he does not become a burden. His next duty is to help others if he has a surplus, and if he really believes they deserve to be helped.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be believed only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called faith.
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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One man in the right will finally get to be a majority.
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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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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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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As we become civilized we are governed less by persons and more by principles. . . . The best of all leaders is the man who teaches people to lead themselves.
Robert Green Ingersoll