Quotes from Robert Green Ingersoll

The inspiration of the Bible depends upon the ignorance of the gentleman who reads it.

There can be goodness without much intelligence - but it seems to me that perfect intelligence and perfect goodness must go together.

The place does not make the man, nor the sceptre the king. Greatness is from within.

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.

Every man is dishonest who lives upon the labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne.

As long as we can get redress in the courts, as long as the laws shall be honestly administered, as long as honesty and intelligence sit upon the bench, as long as intelligence sits in the chairs of jurors, this country will stand, the law will be enforced, and the law will be respected.

In France, the people were the sport of a king's caprice. Everywhere was the shadow of the Bastille. It fell upon the sunniest field, upon the happiest home.

It has been said that a man of genius should select his ancestors with great care - and yet there does not seem to be as much in heredity as most people think. The children of the great are often small.

The time to be happy is now, and the place to be happy is here.

If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane.

The present is the necessary product of all the past, the necessary cause of all the future.

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.

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

Every flower about a house certifies to the refinement of somebody. Every vine climbing and blossoming tells of love and joy

All the punishment in the world will not reform a man, unless he knows that he who inflicts it upon him does it for the sake of reformation, and really and truly loves him, and has his good at heart. Punishment inflicted for gratifying the appetite makes man afraid but debases him.

I do not believe anything comes by chance. I regard the present as the necessary child of a necessary past.

I say, let us think. Let each one express his thought. Let us become investigators, not followers, not cringers and crawlers. If there is in Heaven an infinite being, he never will be satisfied with the worship of cowards and hypocrites.

I concluded that all religions had the same foundation - a belief in the supernatural - a power above nature that man could influence by worship - by sacrifice and prayer.

Our fathers worshiped the golden calf. The worst you can say of an American now is, he worships the gold of the calf.

The sacred books of all the world are worthless dross and common stones compared with Shakespeare's glittering gold and gleaming gems.

Voltaire lighted a torch and gave to others the sacred flame. The light still shines and will as long as man loves liberty and seeks for truth.

The great poets have sympathized with the people. They have uttered in all ages the human cry. Unbought by gold, unawed by power, they have lifted high the torch that illuminates the world.

A great man is a torch in the darkness, a beacon in superstition's night, an inspiration and a prophecy.

You cannot change the conclusion of the brain by torture, nor by social ostracism. But I will tell you what you can do by these and what you have done. You can make hypocrites by the million.