Robert Ingersoll Quotes (76 Quotes)

It is impossible for me to conceive of a character more utterly detestable than that of the Hebrew god

A God who gave his entire time for 40 years to the work of converting three millions of people, and succeeded in getting only two men, and not a single woman, decent enough to enter the promised land (Num

He loves his country best who strives to make it best

I admit that books were voted in and out, and that the Bible was finally formed in accordance with a vote

The inspired Bible has been and is the greatest curse of Christendom, and will so remain as long as it is held to be inspired

A crime against god is a demonstrated impossibility

Calvin was as near like the God of the Old Testament as his health permitted

Give the church a place in the Constitution, let her touch once more the sword of power, and the priceless fruit of all ages will turn to ashes on the lips of men

But if the witnesses are inspired of God then there is no reason for their disagreeing on anything, and if they do disagree it is a demonstration that they were not inspired

I found that the clergy did not understand their own book

The Declaration of Independence was a denial, and the first denial of a nation, of the infamous dogma that God confers the right upon one man to govern others

The real oppressor, enslaver, and corrupter of the people is the Bible

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

There is the same difference between talent and genius that there is between a stone mason and a sculptor

There are some of his sayings which show him to have been a devout Jew, others that he wished to destroy Judaism, others showing that he held all people except the Jews in contempt and that the wished to save no others, others showing that he wished

To argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead

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

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

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.

The history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of infidels

If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty,

God so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn a large majority of the human race

Religion is one of the phases of thought through which the world is passing

If we should put god in the Constitution there would be no room left for man

It is impossible to conceive of a more thoroughly despicable, hateful, and arrogant being, than the Jewish god

If all the bones of all the victims of the Catholic Church could be gathered together, a monument higher than all the pyramids would rise

I would rather live with the woman I love in a world full of trouble, than to live in heaven with nobody but men

Is it not wonderful that the creator of all worlds, infinite in power and wisdom, could not hold his own against the gods of wood and stone Is it not strange that after he had appeared to his chosen people, delivered them from slavery, fed them by

There is not in all the pulpits ingenuity enough to harmonize these ignorant and stupid contradictions

And we are called upon to worship such a God to get upon our knees and tell him that he is good, that he is merciful, that he is just, that he is love

To prevent famine, one plow is worth a million sermons, and even patent medicines will cure more diseases than all the prayers uttered since the beginning of the world

We must remember that we have to make judges out of men, and that by being made judges their prejudices are not diminished and their intelligence is not increased

Read it as you would any other book think of it as you would of any other get the bandage of reverence from your eyes drive from your heart the phantom of fear push from the throne of your brain the cowled form of superstition - then read the Holy Bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom, goodness, and purity to be the author of such ignorance and of such atrocity.

The good part of Christmas is not always Christian -- it is generally Pagan that is to say, human, natural.

Every cradle asks us, Whence and every coffin, Whither The poor barbarian, weeping above his dead, can answer these questions as intelligently as the robed priest of the most authentic creed.

I have not the slightest confidence in 'spiritual manifestations

Age after age, the strong have trampled upon the weak the crafty and heartless have ensnared and enslaved the simple and innocent, and nowhere, in all the annals of mankind, has any god succored the oppressed

The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance called 'faith.'

It is safe to say that every truth in the histories of those times (The Bible) is the result of accident or mistake

No day can be so sacred but that the laugh of a little child will make it holier still

Orthodoxy cannot afford to put out the fires of hell

I combat those only who, knowing nothing of the future, prophesy an eternity of pain- those who sow the seeds of fear in the hearts of men- those only who poison all the springs of life, and seat a skeleton at every feast

If the people were a little more ignorant, astrology would flourish - if a little more enlightened, religion would perish.

If we have the right to use our reason, we certainly have the right to act in accordance with it, and no god can have the right to punish us for such action.

The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know

Custom meets us at the cradle and leaves us only at the tomb

We are not accountable for the sins of Adam.

Calvin founded a little theocracy, modeled after the Old Testament, and succeeded in erecting the most detestable government that ever existed, except the one from which it was copied

To hate man and worship god seems to be the sum of all the creeds

My principal objections to orthodox religion are two - slavery here and hell hereafter