Quotes from Robert Green Ingersoll

Freedom has invented every useful machine, from the lowest to the highest, from the simplest to the most complex.

It is hard to conceive of the utter demoralization, of the political blindness and immorality, of the patriotic dishonesty, of the cruelty and degradation of a people who supplemented the incomparable Declaration of Independence with the Fugitive Slave Law.

Epithets are not arguments. Abuse does not persuade.

For thousands of years people have been trying to force other people to think their way. Did they succeed? No. Will they succeed? No. Why? Because brute force is not an argument.

The combined wisdom and genius of all mankind cannot possibly conceive of an argument against liberty of thought.

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.

There is more real devotional feeling summoned from the temple of the mind by great music than by any sermon ever delivered.

I want to tell you this: you cannot get the robe of hypocrisy on you so thick that the sharp eye of childhood will not see through every veil.

Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.

Every child should be taught that useful work is worship and that intelligent labor is the highest form of prayer.

It is labor that has made the world a fit habitation for the human race.

There are so many societies, so many churches, so many -isms, that it is almost impossible for an independent man to succeed in a political career.

A good deed is the best prayer.

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

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.

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

I believe in living for this world - that's my doctrine - to make everybody happy that you can.

Our government should be entirely and purely secular. The religious views of a candidate should be kept entirely out of sight.

Nothing has been left undone by the enemies of freedom. Every art and artifice, every cruelty and outrage has been practiced and perpetrated to destroy the rights of man. In this great struggle, every crime has been rewarded and every virtue has been punished.

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

By nature all people are alike, but by education become different

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

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.

Fear paints pictures of ghosts and hangs them in the gallery of ignorance.