Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–99) was an American politician and orator. Known as “the great agnostic,” he was a famous critic of the Bible and a proponent of humanistic philosophy and scientific rationalism.
Born in Dresden, New York state, Ingersoll had little formal education. Despite this, he was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1854, and later enjoyed a law practice in Peoria, New York City, and Washington, D.C.
During the Civil War, Ingersoll served as colonel of a Federal cavalry regiment and, in 1867, became State Attorney-General of Illinois. A successful Republican orator, he was also well known for his agnostic lectures attacking Christian beliefs. His heretical religious opinions dissuaded Republican administrations from appointing him to the Cabinet or to the diplomatic posts that he wanted.
Known all over the country as a speaker, Ingersoll was in great demand and received as much as $3,500 for a single evening’s performance. With brilliant oratory and wit, he sought to expose the orthodox superstitions of the times.
Ingersoll wrote several books, including The Gods, and Other Lectures (1876,) Some Mistakes of Moses (1879,) and Why I Am An Agnostic (1896.) His major lectures and speeches are gathered in The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (12 vols., 1902.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Robert G. Ingersoll
In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Genius, Anger, Mediocrity
Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Hope
Good nature is the cheapest commodity in the world, and love is the only thing that will pay ten percent to both borrower and lender.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Love
A college is a place where pebbles are polished and diamonds dimmed.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: One liners, Education, Universities, Colleges
Justice should remove the bandage from her eyes long enough to distinguish between the vicious and the unfortunate.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Difficulties, Opportunity, Adversity, Opportunities, Justice
The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
The destroyer of weeds, thistles and thorns is a benefactor, whether he soweth grain or not.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Helping, Consistency
What has religion to do with facts? Nothing.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Religion
I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Rightness, Right, Activism
I would rather be a beggar and spend my money like a king, than be a king and spend money like a beggar.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Money
If people are not being told the truth about their problems, the majority not only may, but invariably must, make the wrong judgments.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Truth
Religion has not civilized man, man has civilized religion.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Religion
The triumph of justice is the only peace.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Justice
I have the right to do my own thinking. I am going to do it. I have never met any minister that I thought had brain enough to think for himself and for me too. I do my own. I have no reverence for barbarism, no matter how ancient it may be, and no reverence for the savagery of the Old Testament; no reverence for the malice of the New. And let me tell you here tonight that the Old Testament is a thousand times better than the New. The Old Testament threatened no vengeance beyond the grave. God was satisfied when his enemy was dead. It was reserved for the New Testament-it was reserved for universal benevolence – to rend the veil between time and eternity and fix the horrified gaze of man upon the abyss of hell. The New Testament is just as much worse than the Old, as hell is worse than sleep. And yet it is the fashion to say that the Old Testament is bad and that the New Testament is good.
I have no reverence for any book that teaches a doctrine contrary to my reason; no reverence for any book that teaches a doctrine contrary to my heart; and, no matter how old it is, no matter how many have believed it, no matter how many have died on account of it, no matter how many live for it, I have no reverence for that book, and I am glad of it.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his latest breath, I am better now. Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, of fears and tears, that these dear words are true of all the countless dead.
The record of a generous life runs like a vine around the memory of our dead, and every sweet, unselfish act is now a perfumed flower.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Grief, Grieving
Insolence is not logic; epithets are the arguments of malice
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Arguments
The only person entitled to use the imperial ‘we’ in speaking of himself is a king, an editor, and a man with a tapeworm.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Kindness
Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: One liners, Prayer
Every crime is born of necessity. If you want less crime, you must change the conditions. Poverty makes crime. Want, rags, crusts, misfortune – all these awake the wild beast in man, and finally he takes, and takes contrary to law, and becomes a criminal. And what do you do with him? You punish him. Why not punish a man for having consumption? The time will come when you will see that that is just as logical. What do you do with the criminal? You send him to the penitentiary. Is he made better? Worse. The first thing you do is to try to trample out his manhood, by putting an indignity upon him. You mark him. You put him in stripes. At night you put him in darkness. His feeling for revenge grows. You make a wild beast of him, and he comes out of that place branded in body and soul, and then you won’t let him reform if he wants to.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Justice
Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Every man who expresses an honest thought is a soldier in the army of intellectual liberty.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Army, Soldiers
Man is a marvelous curiosity … he thinks he is the Creator’s pet … he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes, and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him and thinks He listens. Isn’t it a quaint idea?
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Civilization has gotten further and further from the so-called ‘natural’ man, who uses all his faculties: perception, invention, improvisation.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Civilization
Religion is one of the phases of thought through which the world is passing
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Religion
An honest God is the noblest work of man.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
He knew no fear except the fear of doing wrong.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Fear
The present is the necessary product of all the past, the necessary cause of all the future.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: The Present
Usually when people are sad, they don’t do anything.
They just cry over their condition.
But when they get angry, they bring about a change.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Adversity, Happiness
The more liberty you give away the more you will have.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Liberty
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