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Robert G. Ingersoll

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Let us account for all we see by the facts we know. If there are things for which we cannot account, let us wait for light. To account for anything by supernatural agencies is, in fact to say that we do not know. Theology is not what we know about God, but what we do not know about Nature.
From Some Mistakes of Moses
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Topic: Religion
No one, in the world's whole history, ever attempted to substantiate a truth by a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of miracle. Nothing but falsehood ever attested itself by signs and wonders. No miracle ever was performed, and no sane man ever thought he had performed one, and until one is performed, there can be no evidence of the existence of any power superior to, and independent of nature.
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Topic: Religion
The religionist is a living fossil, embedded in that rock called faith.
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Topic: Religion
The idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear, beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. It is the rainbow – Hope shining upon the tears of grief.
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Topic: Hope, Religion
It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.
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Topic: Education
Liberty a word without which all other words are vain.
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Topic: Religion
And why does this same God tell me how to raise my children when he had to drown his?
From Some Mistakes of Moses
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Topic: Religion
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.

I attack the monsters, the phantoms of imagination that have ruled the world. I attack slavery. I ask for room -- room for the human mind.
From The Ghosts and Other Lectures
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Topic: Religion
In my judgment, the woman is the equal of the man. She has all the rights I have and one more, and that is the right to be protected. That is my doctrine. You are married; try and make the woman you love happy. Whoever marries simply for himself will make a mistake; but whoever loves a woman so well that he says 'I will make her happy,' makes no mistake. And so with the woman who says, 'I will make him happy.' There is only one way to be happy, and that is to make somebody else so.
From The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child
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Topic: Happiness
Upon the shadowy shore of death the sea of trouble casts no wave. Eyes that have been curtained by the everlasting dark, will never know again the burning touch of tears. Lips touched by eternal silence will never speak again the broken words of grief. Hearts of dust do not break. The dead do not weep. Within the tomb no veiled and weeping sorrow sits, and in the rayless gloom is crouched no shuddering fear.

I think of those I have loved and lost as having returned to earth, as having become a part of the elemental wealth of the world – I think of them as unconscious dust, I dream of them as gurgling in the streams, floating in the clouds, bursting in the foam of light upon the shores of worlds...
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Topic: Death
Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith! Banish me from Eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge!
From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll
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Topic: Religion
The grandest ambition that any man can possibly have, is to so live, and so improve himself in heart and brain, as to be worthy of the love of some splendid woman; and the grandest ambition of any girl is to make herself worthy of the love and adoration of some magnificent man. That is my idea. There is no success in life without love and marriage. You had better be the emperor of one loving and tender heart, and she the empress of yours, than to be king of the world. The man who has really won the love of one good woman in this world, I do not care if he dies in the ditch a beggar, his life has been a success.
From The Liberty Of Man, Woman And Child
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Topic: Success
Let us account for all we see by the facts we know. If there are things for which we cannot account, let us wait for light. To account for anything by supernatural agencies is, in fact to say that we do not know. Theology is not what we know about God, but what we do not know about Nature.
From Some Mistakes of Moses
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Topic: Religion
No one, in the world's whole history, ever attempted to substantiate a truth by a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of miracle. Nothing but falsehood ever attested itself by signs and wonders. No miracle ever was performed, and no sane man ever thought he had performed one, and until one is performed, there can be no evidence of the existence of any power superior to, and independent of nature.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Topic: Religion
The religionist is a living fossil, embedded in that rock called faith.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Topic: Religion
The idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear, beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. It is the rainbow – Hope shining upon the tears of grief.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Topic: Hope, Religion
It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Topic: Education
Liberty a word without which all other words are vain.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Topic: Religion
And why does this same God tell me how to raise my children when he had to drown his?
From Some Mistakes of Moses
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Topic: Religion
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.

I attack the monsters, the phantoms of imagination that have ruled the world. I attack slavery. I ask for room -- room for the human mind.
From The Ghosts and Other Lectures
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Topic: Religion
In my judgment, the woman is the equal of the man. She has all the rights I have and one more, and that is the right to be protected. That is my doctrine. You are married; try and make the woman you love happy. Whoever marries simply for himself will make a mistake; but whoever loves a woman so well that he says 'I will make her happy,' makes no mistake. And so with the woman who says, 'I will make him happy.' There is only one way to be happy, and that is to make somebody else so.
From The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child
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Topic: Happiness
Upon the shadowy shore of death the sea of trouble casts no wave. Eyes that have been curtained by the everlasting dark, will never know again the burning touch of tears. Lips touched by eternal silence will never speak again the broken words of grief. Hearts of dust do not break. The dead do not weep. Within the tomb no veiled and weeping sorrow sits, and in the rayless gloom is crouched no shuddering fear.

I think of those I have loved and lost as having returned to earth, as having become a part of the elemental wealth of the world – I think of them as unconscious dust, I dream of them as gurgling in the streams, floating in the clouds, bursting in the foam of light upon the shores of worlds...
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Topic: Death
Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith! Banish me from Eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge!
From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll
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Topic: Religion
The grandest ambition that any man can possibly have, is to so live, and so improve himself in heart and brain, as to be worthy of the love of some splendid woman; and the grandest ambition of any girl is to make herself worthy of the love and adoration of some magnificent man. That is my idea. There is no success in life without love and marriage. You had better be the emperor of one loving and tender heart, and she the empress of yours, than to be king of the world. The man who has really won the love of one good woman in this world, I do not care if he dies in the ditch a beggar, his life has been a success.
From The Liberty Of Man, Woman And Child
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Topic: Success
Let us account for all we see by the facts we know. If there are things for which we cannot account, let us wait for light. To account for anything by supernatural agencies is, in fact to say that we do not know. Theology is not what we know about God, but what we do not know about Nature.
From Some Mistakes of Moses
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Topic: Religion
No one, in the world's whole history, ever attempted to substantiate a truth by a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of miracle. Nothing but falsehood ever attested itself by signs and wonders. No miracle ever was performed, and no sane man ever thought he had performed one, and until one is performed, there can be no evidence of the existence of any power superior to, and independent of nature.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Topic: Religion
The religionist is a living fossil, embedded in that rock called faith.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Topic: Religion
The idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear, beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. It is the rainbow – Hope shining upon the tears of grief.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Topic: Hope, Religion
It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Topic: Education
Liberty a word without which all other words are vain.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Topic: Religion
And why does this same God tell me how to raise my children when he had to drown his?
From Some Mistakes of Moses
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Topic: Religion
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.

I attack the monsters, the phantoms of imagination that have ruled the world. I attack slavery. I ask for room -- room for the human mind.
From The Ghosts and Other Lectures
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Topic: Religion
In my judgment, the woman is the equal of the man. She has all the rights I have and one more, and that is the right to be protected. That is my doctrine. You are married; try and make the woman you love happy. Whoever marries simply for himself will make a mistake; but whoever loves a woman so well that he says 'I will make her happy,' makes no mistake. And so with the woman who says, 'I will make him happy.' There is only one way to be happy, and that is to make somebody else so.
From The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Topic: Happiness
Upon the shadowy shore of death the sea of trouble casts no wave. Eyes that have been curtained by the everlasting dark, will never know again the burning touch of tears. Lips touched by eternal silence will never speak again the broken words of grief. Hearts of dust do not break. The dead do not weep. Within the tomb no veiled and weeping sorrow sits, and in the rayless gloom is crouched no shuddering fear.

I think of those I have loved and lost as having returned to earth, as having become a part of the elemental wealth of the world – I think of them as unconscious dust, I dream of them as gurgling in the streams, floating in the clouds, bursting in the foam of light upon the shores of worlds...
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Topic: Death
Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith! Banish me from Eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge!
From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Topic: Religion
The grandest ambition that any man can possibly have, is to so live, and so improve himself in heart and brain, as to be worthy of the love of some splendid woman; and the grandest ambition of any girl is to make herself worthy of the love and adoration of some magnificent man. That is my idea. There is no success in life without love and marriage. You had better be the emperor of one loving and tender heart, and she the empress of yours, than to be king of the world. The man who has really won the love of one good woman in this world, I do not care if he dies in the ditch a beggar, his life has been a success.
From The Liberty Of Man, Woman And Child
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Topic: Success