Quotes from Robert G. Ingersoll

Injustice upon earth renders the justice of of heaven impossible.

Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.

In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.

So, ministers say that they teach charity. This is natural. They live on alms. All beggars teach that others should give.

He [Alexander von Humboldt] was to science what Shakespeare was to the drama.

Reason observation and experience - the Holy Trinity of Science.

Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power.

Don't you know that if people could bottle the air they would? Don't you know that there would be an American Air-bottling Association? And don't you know that they would allow thousands and millions to die for want of breath, if they could not pay for air? I am not blaming anybody. I am just telling how it is.

Every cradle asks us "Whence?" and every coffin "Whither?" The poor barbarian, weeping above his dead, can answer these questions as well as the robed priest of the most authentic creed.

Commerce is the great civilizer. We exchange ideas when we exchange fabrics.

He loves his country best who strives to make it best.

It is perfectly delightful to take advantage of the conscientious labors of those who go through and through volume after volume, divide with infinite patience the gold from the dross, and present us with the pure and shining coin. Such men may be likened to bees who save us numberless journeys by giving us the fruit of their own.

Anger blows out the lamp of the mind.

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

Lincoln was not a type. He stands alone - no ancestors, no fellows, no successors.

If I owe Smith ten dollars and God forgives me, that doesn't pay Smith.

A place where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed.

Religion supports nobody. It has to be supported. It produces no wheat, no corn; it ploughs no land; it fells no forests. It is a perpetual mendicant. It lives on the labors of others, and then has the arrogance to pretend that it supports the giver.

He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction. Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the gentlest memory of our world.

If the people were a little more ignorant, astrology would flourish...

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

I would rather live and love where death is king than have eternal life where love is not.

It is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of the dead.

Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine marched down the halls of the American Congress and threw his shining lance full and fair against the brazen foreheads of the defamers of his country and the maligners of his honor.