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
Religion has not civilized man, man has civilized religion.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Religion
It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Education, Common Sense
What has religion to do with facts? Nothing.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Religion
There is something wrong in a government where they who do the most have the least. There is something wrong when honesty wears a rag, and rascality a robe; when the loving, the tender, eat a crust, while the infamous sit at banquets.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Equality
He stands erect by bending over the fallen. He rises by lifting others.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Help, Aid, Assistance
The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Bravery, Difficulty, Defeat, Courage
Courage without conscience is a wild beast.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Bravery, Conscience, Courage
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
The destroyer of weeds, thistles and thorns is a benefactor, whether he soweth grain or not.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Helping, Consistency
If I had my way I’d make health catching instead of disease.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Health
In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Genius, Anger, Mediocrity
Commerce is the great civilizer. We exchange ideas when we exchange fabrics.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Business
Insolence is not logic; epithets are the arguments of malice
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Arguments
Every man who expresses an honest thought is a soldier in the army of intellectual liberty.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Soldiers, Army
From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word, but in the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Religion, Hope, Sympathy
He (Thomas Paine) saw oppression on every hand; injustice everywhere; hypocrisy at the altar; venality on the bench, tyranny on the throne; and with a splendid courage he espoused the cause of the weak against the strong
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Hypocrisy
Few rich men own their property; the property owns them.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Property
The Church has always been willing to swap off treasures in heaven for cash down.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Religion, Churches
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…
—Robert G. Ingersoll
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.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: God
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
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
Reason, Observation, and Experience—the Holy Trinity of Science.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Observation
In the presence of eternity, the mountains are as transient as the clouds.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Perspective
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
It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions,—some one who had the grandeur to say his say. I believe it was Magellan who said, The church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the church. On the prow of his ship were disobedience, defiance, scorn, and success.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Courage, Faith
Happiness is not a reward—it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment—it is a result.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
There can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Love is the only bow of life’s dark cloud. It is the Morning and Evening Star. It shines upon the cradle of the babe, and sheds its radiance upon the quiet tomb. It is the Mother of Art, inspirer of poet, patriot, and philosopher. It is the air and light of every heart, builder of every home, kinder of every fire on every hearth, It was the first dream of immortality. It fills the world with melody. Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to joy, and makes right royal kings of common clay.
—Robert G. Ingersoll
Topics: Love
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
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