Robert Green Ingersoll

A prayer that must have a cannon behind it better never be uttered. Forgiveness ought not to go in partnership with shot and shell. Love need not carry knives and revolvers.

— Robert Green Ingersoll

A great man does not seek applause or place; he seeks for truth; he seeks the road to happiness, and what he ascertains, he gives to others.

— Robert Green Ingersoll

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.

— Robert Green Ingersoll

As long as we can get redress in the courts, as long as the laws shall be honestly administered, as long as honesty and intelligence sit upon the bench, as long as intelligence sits in the chairs of jurors, this country will stand, the law will be enforced, and the law will be respected.

— Robert Green Ingersoll

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

— Robert Green Ingersoll

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

— Robert Green Ingersoll

There is a quiet about the life of a farmer, and the hope of a serene old age, that no other business or profession can promise.

— Robert Green Ingersoll

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

— Robert Green Ingersoll

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.

— Robert Green Ingersoll

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

— Robert Green Ingersoll

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

— Robert Green Ingersoll

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

— Robert Green Ingersoll

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

— Robert Green Ingersoll

Our government should be entirely and purely secular. The religious views of a candidate should be kept entirely out of sight.

— Robert Green Ingersoll

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.

— Robert Green Ingersoll

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

— Robert Green Ingersoll

Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.

— Robert Green Ingersoll

Justice is the only worship.

— Robert Green Ingersoll

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.

— Robert Green Ingersoll

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

— Robert Green Ingersoll

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

— Robert Green Ingersoll

There is a quiet about the life of a farmer, and the hope of a serene old age, that no other business or profession can promise.

— Robert Green Ingersoll

A great man does not seek applause or place; he seeks for truth; he seeks the road to happiness, and what he ascertains, he gives to others.

— Robert Green Ingersoll

Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery. It is far better to be free, to leave the forts and barricades of fear, to stand erect and face the future with a smile. It is far better to give yourself sometimes to negligence, to drift with wave and tide, with the blind force of the world, to think and dream, to forget the chains and limitations of the breathing life, to forget purpose and object, to lounge in the picture gallery of the brain, to feel once more the clasps and kisses of the past, to bring life's morning back, to see again the forms and faces of the dead, to paint fair pictures for the coming years, to forget all Gods, their promises and threats, to feel within your veins life's joyous stream and hear the martial music, the rhythmic beating of your fearless heart. And then to rouse yourself to do all useful things, to reach with thought and deed the ideal in your brain, to give your fancies wing, that they, like chemist bees, may find art's nectar in the weeds of common things, to look with trained and steady eyes for facts, to find the subtle threads that join the distant with the now, to increase knowledge, to take burdens from the weak, to develop the brain, to defend the right, to make a palace for the soul. This is real religion. This is real worship

— Robert Green Ingersoll

There is a quiet about the life of a farmer, and the hope of a serene old age, that no other business or profession can promise.

— Robert Green Ingersoll