Quotes from Robert Green Ingersoll

All the men of wealth should remember that everybody in a community has got, in some way, to be supported. I want to see them so that they can support themselves by their own labor.

Ignorant people are apt to overrate the value of what is called education. The sons of the poor, having suffered the privations of poverty, think of wealth as the mother of joy.

Voltaire made up his mind to destroy the superstition of his time. He fought with every weapon that genius could devise or use. He was the greatest of all caricaturists, and he used this wonderful gift without mercy.

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.

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

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

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

Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows.

The church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber dislikes a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness.

An infinite God ought to be able to protect Himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures.

Diderot took the ground that, if orthodox religion be true Christ was guilty of suicide. Having the power to defend himself he should have used it.

If the people were a little more ignorant, astrology would flourish - if a little more enlightened, religion would perish.

Our hope of immortality does not come from any religions, but nearly all religions come from that hope.

Religion is one of the phases of thought through which the world is passing.

I have no confidence in any religion that can be demonstrated only to children.

Catholicism is contrary to human liberty. Catholicism bases salvation upon belief. Catholicism teaches man to trample his reason under foot. And for that reason it is wrong.

If God objected to [people with various handicaps], he ought not have created such people.

Let us put theology out of religion. Theology has always sent the worst to heaven, the best to hell.

No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.

If Jehovah cannot support his religion without going into partnership with a State Legislature, I think he ought to give it up.

If this religion is true, then there is only one Savior, only one narrow path to life. Christianity cannot live in peace with any other religion.

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

In the grave should be buried the prejudices and passions born of conflict. Charity should hold the scales in which are weighed the deeds of men.

They who gain applause and power by pandering to the mistakes, the prejudices and passions of the multitude are the enemies of liberty.