Robert Green Ingersoll

A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether it is or is not a fact. A lie will not fit anything except another lie.

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

The more liberty you give away the more you will have.

Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.

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.

An honest God is the noblest work of man.

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

Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.

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

Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.

In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 rich men own their property; their property owns them.

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.

Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows.

The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenseless. He stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.

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

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

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.

There is no slavery but ignorance.

Courage without conscience is a wild beast.