The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 1 (of 12) Dresden Edition—Lectures Quotes

“Like the most of you, I was raised among people who knew - who were certain. They did not reason or investigate. They had no doubts. They knew that they had the truth. In their creed there was no guess — no perhaps. They had a revelation from God. They knew the beginning of things. They knew that God commenced to create one Monday morning, four thousand and four years before Christ. They knew that in the eternity — back of that morning, he had done nothing. They knew that it took him six days to make the earth — all plants, all animals, all life, and all the globes that wheel in space. They knew exactly what he did each day and when he rested. They knew the origin, the cause of evil, of all crime, of all disease and death.

At the same time they knew that God created man in his own image and was perfectly satisfied with his work... They knew all about the Flood -- knew that God, with the exception of eight, drowned all his children -- the old and young -- the bowed patriarch and the dimpled babe -- the young man and the merry maiden -- the loving mother and the laughing child -- because his mercy endureth forever. They knew too, that he drowned the beasts and birds -- everything that walked or crawled or flew -- because his loving kindness is over all his works. They knew that God, for the purpose of civilizing his children, had devoured some with earthquakes, destroyed some with storms of fire, killed some with his lightnings, millions with famine, with pestilence, and sacrificed countless thousands upon the fields of war. They knew that it was necessary to believe these things and to love God. They knew that there could be no salvation except by faith, and through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.

Then I asked myself the question: Is there a supernatural power -- an arbitrary mind -- an enthroned God -- a supreme will that sways the tides and currents of the world -- to which all causes bow?

I do not deny. I do not know - but I do not believe. I believe that the natural is supreme - that from the infinite chain no link can be lost or broken — that there is no supernatural power that can answer prayer - no power that worship can persuade or change — no power that cares for man.

Is there a God?

I do not know.

Is man immortal?

I do not know.

One thing I do know, and that is, that neither hope, nor fear, belief, nor denial, can change the fact. It is as it is, and it will be as it must be.

We can be as honest as we are ignorant. If we are, when asked what is beyond the horizon of the known, we must say that we do not know. We can tell the truth, and we can enjoy the blessed freedom that the brave have won. We can destroy the monsters of superstition, the hissing snakes of ignorance and fear. We can drive from our minds the frightful things that tear and wound with beak and fang. We can civilize our fellow-men. We can fill our lives with generous deeds, with loving words, with art and song, and all the ecstasies of love. We can flood our years with sunshine — with the divine climate of kindness, and we can drain to the last drop the golden cup of joy.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol 1: Lectures

“The real difference is this: the Christian says that he has knowledge; the Agnostic admits that he has none; and yet the Christian accuses the Agnostic of arrogance, and asks him how he has the impudence to admit the limitations of his mind. To the Agnostic every fact is a torch, and by this light, and this light only, he walks.

The Agnostic knows that the testimony of man is not sufficient to establish what is known as the miraculous. We would not believe to-day the testimony of millions to the effect that the dead had been raised. The church itself would be the first to attack such testimony. If we cannot believe those whom we know, why should we believe witnesses who have been dead thousands of years, and about whom we know nothing?

The Agnostic takes the ground that human experience is the basis of morality. Consequently, it is of no importance who wrote the gospels, or who vouched or vouches for the genuineness of the miracles. In his scheme of life these things are utterly unimportant. He is satisfied that “the miraculous” is the impossible. He knows that the witnesses were wholly incapable of examining the questions involved, that credulity had possession of their minds, that 'the miraculous' was expected, that it was their daily food.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol 1: Lectures

“It is far more important to love your wife than to love God, and I will tell you why. You cannot help him, but you can help her. You can fill her life with the perfume of perpetual joy. It is far more important that you love your children than that you love Jesus Christ. And why? If he is God you cannot help him, but you can plant a little flower of happiness in every footstep of the child, from the cradle until you die in that child's arms. Let me tell you to-day it is far more important to build a home than to erect a church. The holiest temple beneath the stars is a home that love has built. And the holiest altar in all the wide world is the fireside around which gather father and mother and the sweet babes.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 1 (of 12) Dresden Edition—Lectures

“Suppose God should damn to everlasting fire a man so great and good, that he, looking from the abyss of hell, would forgive God,—how would a god feel then?”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 1 (of 12) Dresden Edition—Lectures

“Huddled in folds they listened with wide eyes while the shepherds told of ravening wolves. With great gladness they exchanged their fleeces for security. Shorn and shivering, they had the happiness of seeing their protectors comfortable and warm. Through all the years, those who plowed divided with those who prayed. Wicked industry supported pious idleness, the hut gave to the cathedral, and frightened poverty gave even its rags to buy a robe for hypocrisy.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 1 (of 12) Dresden Edition—Lectures

“If he was, in fact, God, he knew there was no such thing as death. He knew that what we called death was but the eternal opening of the golden gates of everlasting joy; and it took no heroism to face a death that was eternal life.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 1 (of 12) Dresden Edition—Lectures

“One dollar at compound interest, at twenty-four per cent., for one hundred years, would produce a sum equal to our national debt. Interest eats night and day, and the more it eats the hungrier it grows. The farmer in debt, lying awake at night, can, if he listens, hear it gnaw. If he owes nothing, he can hear his corn grow. Get out of debt as soon as you possibly can. You have supported idle avarice and lazy economy long enough.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 1 (of 12) Dresden Edition—Lectures

“He bade the slave ships speed from coast to coast, Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 1 (of 12) Dresden Edition—Lectures

“They taught the doctrine that God had a right to damn us because he made us. That is just the reason that he has not a right to damn us. There is some dust. Unconscious dust! What right has God to change that unconscious dust into a human being, when he knows that human being will sin; when he knows that human being will suffer eternal agony? Why not leave him in the unconscious dust? What right has an infinite God to add to the sum of human agony? Suppose I knew that I could change that piece of furniture into a living, sentient human being, and I knew that that being would suffer untold agony forever. If I did it, I would be a fiend. I would leave that being in the unconscious dust. And yet we are told that we must believe such a doctrine or we are to be eternally damned! It will not do.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 1 (of 12) Dresden Edition—Lectures

“Nobody ever saw anybody who had seen anybody who had heard of anybody that had ever seen anybody that had ever seen one of the original Hebrew manuscripts.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 1 (of 12) Dresden Edition—Lectures

“Christ never wrote a solitary word of the New Testament—not one word. There is an account that he once stooped and wrote something in the sand, but that has not been preserved. He never told anybody to write a word.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 1 (of 12) Dresden Edition—Lectures

“If what is known as the Christian Religion is true, nothing can be more wonderful than the fact that Matthew, Mark and Luke say nothing about "salvation by faith;" that they do not even hint at the doctrine of the atonement, and are as silent as empty tombs as to the necessity of believing anything to secure happiness in this world or another.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 1 (of 12) Dresden Edition—Lectures

“No man can control his belief. You hear evidence for and against, and the integrity of the soul stands at the scales and tells which side rises and which side falls. You can not believe as you wish. You must believe as you must.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 1 (of 12) Dresden Edition—Lectures

“Why," they say to me, "suppose all this should turn out to be true, and you should come to the day of judgment and find all these things to be true. What would you do then?" I would walk up like a man, and say, "I was mistaken." "And suppose God was about to pass judgment upon you, what would you say?" I would say to him, "Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you." Why not? I am told that I must render good for evil. I am told that if smitten on one cheek I must turn the other. I am told that I must overcome evil with good. I am told that I must love my enemies; and will it do for this God who tells me to love my enemies to damn his? No, it will not do. It will not do.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 1 (of 12) Dresden Edition—Lectures

“That church teaches that infinite innocence was sacrificed for me! I do not want it! I do not wish to go to heaven unless I can settle by the books, and go there because I ought to go there. I have said, and I say again, I do not wish to be a charity angel. I have no ambition to become a winged pauper of the skies.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 1 (of 12) Dresden Edition—Lectures

“The people also found that commerce made friends where religion made enemies, and that religious zeal was utterly incompatible with peace between nations or individuals.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 1 (of 12) Dresden Edition—Lectures

“War never can be the interest of a trading nation any more than quarreling can be profitable to a man in business. But to make war with those who trade with us is like setting a bull-dog upon a customer at the shop-door.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 1 (of 12) Dresden Edition—Lectures

“The doctrines of total depravity and endless punishment were born of bad cooking and dyspepsia.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 1 (of 12) Dresden Edition—Lectures