Robert Green Ingersoll Quotes

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.

Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.

Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.

Do you not know that every religion in the world has declared every other religion a fraud? Yes, we all know it. That is the time all religions tell the truth - each of the other.

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

The myth of hell represents all the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable.

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.

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

The intellectual advancement of man depends on how often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth.

There can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven.

Reason, observation, and experience; the holy trinity of science.

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

A believer is a bird in a cage, a freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing.

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

We rise by lifting others.

As long as a man lives he should study. Death alone has the right to dismiss the school.

There will never be a generation of great men until there has been a generation of free women - of free mothers.

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.

Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers: It is the only prayer that deserves an answer—good, honest, noble work.

Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense.

Blasphemy is what an old dogma screams at a new truth.

They say: Belief is important. I say: No, actions are important. Judge by deed, not by creed.

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.

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.

If the Bible and my brain are both the work of the same infinite God, whose fault is it that the book and my brain do not agree?

The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men.

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

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

Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment.

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

TO PLOW IS TO PRAY; TO PLANT IS TO PROPHESY, AND THE HARVEST ANSWERS AND FULFILLS.

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

The more false we destroy, the more room there will be for the true.

You cannot be so poor that you cannot help somebody.

This, in my judgment, is the highest philosophy: First, do not regret having lost yesterday; second, do not fear that you will lose tomorrow; third, enjoy today.

If I had my way I'd make health catching instead of disease.

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.

Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows.

Mental slavery is mental death, and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul.

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

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

Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows.

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.

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

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 Church has always been willing to swap off treasures in heaven for cash down.

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

The way to be happy is to make others so.

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

If there is a God who will damn his children forever, I would rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous tyrant.