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Ignorance is the worst form of slavery. (Paraphrased)

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
Worst
Form
Paraphrased
Slavery
Ignorance

More quotes by 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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Intellect, without heart, is infinitely cruel. . . . So that, after all, the real aristocracy must be that of goodness where the intellect is directed by the heart.
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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Love your friends and be just to your enemies.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Why should we postpone our joy to another world? Let us get all we can of the good between the cradle and the grave, all that we can of the truly dramatic. If, when death comes, that is the end, we have at least made the best of this life.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know.
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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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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There is no evidence that God ever interfered in the affairs of man. The hand of earth is stretched uselessly towards heaven. From the clouds there comes no help.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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Theology is not what we know about God, but what we do not know about Nature.
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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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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One thing I do know, and that is, that neither hope, nor fear, belief, nor denial, can change the fact. It is as it is, and it will be as it must be.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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The good part of Christmas is not always Christian -- it is generally Pagan that is to say, human, natural.
Robert Green Ingersoll
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They who stand with breaking hearts around this little grave, need have no fear. The larger and the nobler faith in all that is, and is to be, tells us that death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest ... The dead do not suffer.
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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Just to the extent that the Bible was appealed to in matters of science, science was retarded and just to the extent that science has been appealed to in matters of religion, religion has advanced - so that now the object of intelligent religionists is to adopt a creed that will bear the test and criticism of science.
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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Grant others the same rights as you claim for yourself.
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