Robert Green Ingersoll Quotes

Secularism is a religion, a religion that is understood. It has no mysteries, no mumblings, no priests, no ceremonies, no falsehoods, no miracles, and no persecutions.

Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.

The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.

Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.

Do you not know that every religion in the world has declared every other religion a fraud? Yes, we all know it. That is the time all religions tell the truth - each of the other.

Superstition is, always has been, and forever will be, the foe of progress, the enemy of education and the assassin of freedom.

The myth of hell represents all the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable.

Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.

Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.

Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself.

The hands that help are better far than lips that pray.

The intellectual advancement of man depends on how often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth.

There can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven.

This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves.

Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.

It is contended by many that ours is a Christian government, founded upon the Bible, and that all who look upon the book as false or foolish are destroying the foundation of our country. The truth is, our government is not founded upon the rights of gods, but upon the rights of men. Our Constitution was framed, not to declare and uphold the deity of Christ, but the sacredness of humanity. Ours is the first government made by the people and for the people. It is the only nation with which the gods have had nothing to do.

A believer is a bird in a cage, a freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing.

The Emperor Constantine, who lifted Christianity into power, murdered his wife Fausta, and his eldest son Crispus, the same year that he convened the Council of Nice to decide whether Jesus Christ was a man or the Son of God. The council decided that Christ was consubstantial with the father. This was in the year 325. We are thus indebted to a wife-murderer for settling the vexed question of the divinity of the Savior.

When I became convinced that the universe is natural, that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell. The dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust.

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.

In the presence of eternity, the mountains are as transient as the clouds.

We rise by lifting others.

Love is the only bow on Life's dark cloud. It is the Morning and the Evening Star. It shines upon the cradle of the babe, and sheds its radiance on the quiet tomb. It is the mother of Art—inspirer of poet, patriot, and philosopher. It is the air and light of every heart— builder of every home—kindler of every fire on every hearth. It was the first to dream of immortality. It fills the world with melody, for Music is the voice of Love.

All I have to say is, Love one another - that is the height of all philosophy. It is beyond all religions. It is the secret of joy - the fountain of Perpetual Youth - the only rainbow on life's dark cloud.

As long as a man lives he should study. Death alone has the right to dismiss the school.

There will never be a generation of great men until there has been a generation of free women - of free mothers.

Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers: It is the only prayer that deserves an answer—good, honest, noble work.

What light is to the eyes - what air is to the lungs - what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man.

Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense.

Most men are followers, and implicitly rely upon the judgment of others. They mistake solemnity for wisdom, and regard a grave countenance as the title page and Preface to a most learned volume. So they are easily imposed upon by forms, strange garments, and solemn ceremonies. And when the teaching of parents, the customs of neighbors, and the general tongue approve and justify a belief or creed, no matter how absurd, it is hard even for the strongest to hold the citadel of his soul. In each country, in defence of each religion, the same arguments would be urged.

Blasphemy is what an old dogma screams at a new truth.

They say: Belief is important. I say: No, actions are important. Judge by deed, not by creed.

To destroy guide-boards that point in the wrong direction . . . to drive the fiend of fear from the mind . . . is the task of the Freethinker.

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.

If the Bible and my brain are both the work of the same infinite God, whose fault is it that the book and my brain do not agree?

The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men.

If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization.

A mule has neither pride of ancestry nor hope of posterity.

Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment.

Justice should remove the bandage from her eyes long enough to distinguish between the vicious and the unfortunate.

Colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed.

It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.

A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether it is or is not a fact. A lie will not fit anything except another lie.

TO PLOW IS TO PRAY; TO PLANT IS TO PROPHESY, AND THE HARVEST ANSWERS AND FULFILLS.

The priests of one religion never credit the miracles of another religion. Is this because priests instinctively know priests?

The old doctrine that God wanted man to do something for him, and that he kept a watchful eye upon all the children of men; that he rewarded the virtuous and punished the wicked, is gradually fading from the mind. We know that some of the worst men have what the world calls success. We know that some of the best men lie upon the straw of failure. We know that honesty goes hungry, while larceny sits at the banquet. We know that the vicious have every physical comfort, while the virtuous are often clad in rags.

If I had my way I'd make health catching instead of disease.

In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.

This, in my judgment, is the highest philosophy: First, do not regret having lost yesterday; second, do not fear that you will lose tomorrow; third, enjoy today.

You cannot be so poor that you cannot help somebody.