Quotes By Robert Green Ingersoll

In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.

It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had the individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions.

Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god market was fairly glutted and heaven crammed with these phantoms.

The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right that he claims for himself.

Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.

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

Few rich men own their property; their property owns them.

Insolence is not logic; epithets are the arguments of malice.

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.

Courage without conscience is a wild beast.

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.

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

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

We need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death.

Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.

Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows.

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

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

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

There is no slavery but ignorance.

An honest God is the noblest work of man.

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

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

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.

Surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and depth; that there are no walls nor fences, nor prohibited places, nor sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought.

In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.

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.

When the will defies fear, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, when honor scorns to compromise with death - that is heroism.

I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot.

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