Background Image

...

My Heart Was Filled With Gratitude, With Thankfulness, And Went Out In Love To All The Heroes, The Thinkers Who Gave Their Lives For The Liberty Of Hand And Brain... To All The Wise, The Good, The Brave Of Every Land, Whose Thoughts And Deeds Have Given Freedom To The Sons Of Men. And Then I Vowed To Grasp The Torch That They Had Held, And Hold It High, That Light Might Conquer Darkness Still.

-Robert Green Ingersoll

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

My Heart Was Filled

Robert Green Ingersoll

...

My Heart Was Filled With Gratitude, With Thankfulness, And Went Out In Love To All The Heroes, The Thinkers Who Gave Their Lives For The Liberty Of Hand And Brain... To All The Wise, The Good, The Brave Of Every Land, Whose Thoughts And Deeds Have Given Freedom To The Sons Of Men. And Then I Vowed To Grasp The Torch That They Had Held, And Hold It High, That Light Might Conquer Darkness Still.

Views: 5

Topic

More From Robert Green Ingersoll

Labor Is The Only Prayer That Nature Answers: It Is The Only Prayer That Deserves An Answer—good, Honest, Noble Work.

If God Created The Universe, There Was A Time When He Commenced To Create. Back Of That Commencement There Must Have Been An Eternity. In That Eternity What Was This God Doing? He Certainly Did Not Think. There Was Nothing To Think About. He Did Not Remember. Nothing Had Ever Happened. What Did He Do? Can You Imagine Anything More Absurd Than An Infinite Intelligence In Infinite Nothing Wasting An Eternity?

Infinite Intelligence

By Physical Liberty I Mean The Right To Do Anything Which Does Not Interfere With The Happiness Of Another. By Intellectual Liberty I Mean The Right To Think And The Right To Think Wrong.

Anger Is A Wind Which Blows Out The Lamp Of The Mind.

I Hate Above All Things A Cross Man. What Right Has He To Murder The Sunshine Of A Day? What Right Has He To Assassinate The Joy Of Life? When You Go Home, You Ought To Go Like A Ray Of Light-so That It Will, Even In The Night, Burst Out Of The Doors And Windows And Illuminate The Darkness.

Language Is Not Subtle Enough, Tender Enough, To Express All That We Feel; And When Language Fails, The Highest And Deepest Longings Are Translated Into Music. Music Is The Sunshine - The Climate - Of The Soul, And It Floods The Heart With A Perfect June.

All Of The Ten Commandments That Are Good Were Old; All That Were New Art Foolish. If Jehovah Had Been Civilized He Would Have Left Out The Commandment About Keeping The Sabbath, And In Its Place Would Have Said: "thou Shalt Not Enslave Thy Fellow-men." He Would Have Omitted The One About Swearing, And Said: "the Man Shall Have But One Wife, And The Woman But One Husband." He Would Have Left Out The One About Graven Images, And In Its Stead Would Have Said: "thou Shalt Not Wage Wars Of Extermination, And Thou Shalt Not Unsheathe The Sword Except In Self-defence.

If A Man Wishes To Have God Recognized In The Constitution Of Our Country, Let Him Read The History Of The Inquisition, And Let Him Remember That Hundreds Of Millions Of Men, Women, And Children Have Been Sacrificed To Placate The Wrath, Or Win The Approbation Of This God.

There Is No Evidence That God Ever Interfered In The Affairs Of Man. The Hand Of Earth Is Stretched Uselessly Towards Heaven. From The Clouds There Comes No Help.

Take From The Church The Miraculous, The Supernatural, The Incomprehensible, The Unreasonable, The Impossible, The Unknowable, The Absurd, And Nothing But A Vacuum Remains.

If There Is A God

It Is Hard To Overstate The Debt We Owe To The Men And Women Of Genius.

It Is A Thousand Times Better To Have Common Sense Without Education Than To Have Education Without Common Sense.

Is There An Intelligent Man Or Woman Now In The World Who Believes In The Garden Of Eden Story? If You Find Any Man Who Believes It, Strike His Forehead And You Will Hear An Echo. Something Is For Rent.

If, With All The Time At My Disposal, With All The Wealth Of The Resources Of This Vast Universe, To Do With As I Will, I Could Not Produce A Better Scheme Of Life Than Now Prevails, I Would Be Ashamed Of My Efforts And Consider My Work A Humiliating Failure.

It Is Better To Deserve Without Receiving Than To Receive Without Deserving

He Raised His Hands, Not To Strike, But In Benediction. Lincoln Was The Grandest Figure Of The Fiercest Civil War. He Is The Gentlest Memory Of Our World.

The Careful Reader Of The New Testament Will Find Three Christs Described: - One Who Wished To Preserve Judaism - One Who Wished To Reform It, And One Who Built A System Of His Own

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 Presence Of Death I Affirm And Reaffirm The Truth Of All That I Have Said Against The Superstitions Of The World. I Would Say That Much On The Subject With My Last Breath.

If The World Ever Advances Beyond What It Is Today, It Must Be Led By Men Who Express Their Real Opinions.

If The People Were A Little More Ignorant, Astrology Would Flourish - If A Little More Enlightened, Religion Would Perish.

At The Bottom Of Religious Persecution Is The Doctrine Of Self-defence; That Is To Say, The Defence Of The Soul. If The Founder Of Christianity Had Plainly Said: 'it Is Not Necessary To Believe In Order To Be Saved; It Is Only Necessary To Do, And He Who Really Loves His Fellow-men, Who Is Kind, Honest, Just And Charitable, Is To Be Forever Blest' - If He Had Only Said That, There Would Probably Have Been But Little Persecution.

I Would Rather Live And Love Where Death Is King Than Have Eternal Life Where Love Is Not.

All Should Be Taught That The Highest Ambition Is To Be Happy, And To Add To The Well-being Of Others; That Place And Power Are Not Necessary To Success; That The Desire To Acquire Great Wealth Is A Kind Of Insanity. They Should Be Taught That It Is A Waste Of Energy, A Waste Of Thought, A Waste Of Life, To Acquire What You Do Not Need And What You Do Not Really Use For The Benefit Of Yourself Or Others.

If We Admit That Some Infinite Being Has Controlled The Destinies Of Persons And Peoples, History Becomes A Most Cruel And Bloody Farce.

Take The Word Liberty From Human Speech And All The Other Words Become Poor, Withered, Meaningless Sounds - But With That Word Realized - With That Word Understood, The World Becomes A Paradise.

Theology Is Not What We Know About God, But What We Do Not Know About Nature.

A Man Is Not Moral Because He Is Obedient Through Fear Or Ignorance. Morality Lives In The Realm Of Perceived Obligation.

Fear Paints Pictures Of Ghosts And Hangs Them In The Gallery Of Ignorance.

The Laboring People Should Unite And Should Protect Themselves Against All Idlers. You Can Divide Mankind Into Two Classes: The Laborers And The Idlers, The Supporters And The Supported, The Honest And The Dishonest. Every Man Is Dishonest Who Lives Upon The Unpaid Labor Of Others, No Matter If He Occupies A Throne. All Laborers Should Be Brothers.

An Infinite Personality Is An Infinite Impossibility.

The Church Says The Earth Is Flat. But I Know That It Is Round. For I Have Seen The Shadow On The Moon. And I Have More Faith In A Shadow Than In The Church.

We Are All Children Of The Same Mother, And The Same Fate Awaits Us All. We, Too, Have Our Religion, And It Is This: Help For The Living-hope For The Dead.

As A Matter Of Fact, No One Knows That God Exists And No One Knows That God Does Not Exist. To My Mind There Is No Evidence That God Exists - That This World Is Governed By A Being Of Infinite Goodness, Wisdom And Power, But I Do Not Pretend To Know.

The More False We Destroy, The More Room There Will Be For The True.

Darwin Has Done More To Change Human Thought Than All The Priests Who Have Existed.

I Cannot See Why We Should Expect An Infinite God To Do Better In Another World Than He Does In This.

The Hands That Help Are Better Far Than Lips That Pray.

To Me, The Most Obscene Word In Our Language Is Celibacy.

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

Whenever A Man Believes That He Has The Exact Truth From God, There Is In That Man No Spirit Of Compromise. He Has Not The Modesty Born Of The Imperfections Of Human Nature; He Has The Arrogance Of Theological Certainty And The Tyranny Born Of Ignorant Assurance. Believing Himself To Be The Slave Of God, He Imitates His Master, And Of All Tyrants The Worst Is A Slave In Power.

Hope Is The Only Universal Liar Who Never Loses His Reputation For Veracity.

I Am Not So Much For The Freedom Of Religion As I Am For The Religion Of Freedom.

Freedom Of Religion

For Ages, A Deadly Conflict Has Been Waged Between A Few Brave Men And Women Of Thought And Genius Upon The One Side, And The Great Ignorant Religious Mass On The Other. This Is The War Between Science And Faith. The Few Have Appealed To Reason, To Honor, To Law, To Freedom, To The Known, And To Happiness Here In This World. The Many Have Appealed To Prejudice, To Fear, To Miracle, To Slavery, To The Unknown, And To Misery Hereafter. The Few Have Said "think" The Many Have Said "believe!"

I Love To Think Of The Whole Universe Together As One Eternal Fact. I Love To Think That Everything Is Alive; That Crystallization Is Itself A Step Toward Joy. I Love To Think That When A Bud Bursts Into Blossom: It Feels A Thrill. I Love To Have The Universe Full Of Feeling And Full Of Joy, And Not Full Of Simple Dead, Inert Matter, Managed By An Old Bachelor For All Eternity.

No One Can Control His Own Opinion Or His Own Belief. My Belief Was Forced Upon Me By My Surroundings. I Am The Product Of All Circumstances That Have In Any Way Touched Me.

In The Search For Truth - That Everything In Nature Seems To Hide - Man Needs The Assistance Of All His Faculties. All The Senses Should Be Awake.

The Ideas Of Right And Wrong Change With The Experience Of The Race, And This Change Is Wrought By The Gradual Ascertaining Of Consequences - Of Results.

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.

I Admit That Books Were Voted In And Out, And That The Bible Was Finally Formed In Accordance With A Vote.

So, Ministers Say That They Teach Charity. This Is Natural. They Live On Alms. All Beggars Teach That Others Should Give.

When A Fact Can Be Demonstrated, Force Is Unnecessary; When It Cannot Be Demonstrated, Force Is Infamous.

Why Should We Postpone Our Joy To Another World? Let Us Get All We Can Of The Good Between The Cradle And The Grave, All That We Can Of The Truly Dramatic. If, When Death Comes, That Is The End, We Have At Least Made The Best Of This Life.

The Church In All Ages And Among All Peoples Has Been The Consistent Enemy Of The Human Race. Everywhere And At All Times, It Has Opposed The Liberty Of Thought And Expression. It Has Been The Sworn Enemy Of Investigation And Intellectual Development. It Has Denied The Existence Of Facts, The Tendency Of Which Was To Undermine Its Power. It Has Always Been Carrying Fagots To The Feet Of Philosophy. It Has Erected The Gallows For Genius. It Has Built The Dungeon For Thinkers.

Burns Had His Faults, His Frailties. He Was Intensely Human. Still, I Would Rather Appear At The "judgment Seat" Drunk, And Be Able To Say That I Was The Author Of "a Man's A Man For 'a That," Than To Be Perfectly Sober And Admit That I Had Lived And Died A Scotch Presbyterian.

The Greatest Test Of Courage On Earth Is To Bear Defeat Without Losing Heart.

There Is More Real Devotional Feeling Summoned From The Temple Of The Mind By Great Music Than By Any Sermon Ever Delivered.

One Laugh Of A Child Will Make The Holiest Day More Sacred Still.

Infidels In All Ages Have Battled For The Rights Of Man, And Have At All Times Been The Fearless Advocates Of Liberty And Justice.

No One Infers A God From The Simple, From The Known, From What Is Understood, But From The Complex, From The Unknown, And Incomprehensible. Our Ignorance Is God; What We Know Is Science.

If You Have Ever Clothed Another With Woe, As With A Garment Of Pain, You Will Never Be Quite As Happy As Though You Had Not Done That Thing.

If There Be An Infinite Being, He Does Not Need Our Help - We Need Not Waste Our Energies In His Defense.

The Man Who Does Not Do His Own Thinking Is A Slave, And Is A Traitor To Himself And To His Fellow-men.

If There Is One Subject In This World Worthy Of Being Discussed, Worthy Of Being Understood, It Is The Question Of Intellectual Liberty. Without That, We Are Simply Painted Clay.

Fear Is Religion, Courage Is Science.

Every Flower About A House Certifies To The Refinement Of Somebody. Every Vine Climbing And Blossoming Tells Of Love And Joy

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.

Let Us Account For All We See By The Facts We Know. If There Are Things For Which We Cannot Account, Let Us Wait For Light. To Account For Anything By Supernatural Agencies Is, In Fact To Say That We Do Not Know. Theology Is Not What We Know About God, But What We Do Not Know About Nature.

Today The Intelligence Of The World Denies The Miraculous. Ignorance Is The Soil Of The Supernatural. The Foundation Of Christianity Has Crumbled, Has Disappeared, And The Entire Fabric Must Fall. The Natural Is True. The Miraculous Is False.

The God Of Hell Should Be Held In Loathing, Contempt And Scorn. A God Who Threatens Eternal Pain Should Be Hated, Not Loved - Cursed, Not Worshiped. A Heaven Presided Over By Such A God Must Be Below The Lowest Hell.

It Seems To Me Impossible For A Civilized Man To Love Or Worship, Or Respect The God Of The Old Testament. A Really Civilized Man, A Really Civilized Woman, Must Hold Such A God In Abhorrence And Contempt... In The New Testament, Death Is Not The End, But The Beginning Of Punishment That Has No End. In The New Testament The Malice Of God Is Infinite And The Hunger Of His Revenge Eternal... This Frightful Dogma, This Infinite Lie, Made Me The Implacable Enemy Of Christianity. The Truth Is That This Belief In Eternal Pain Has Been The Real Persecutor.

Our Civilization Is Not Christian. It Does Not Come From The Skies. It Is Not A Result Of Inspiration. It Is The Child Of Invention, Of Discovery, Of Applied Knowledge - That Is To Say, Of Science. When Man Becomes Great And Grand Enough To Admit That All Have Equal Rights; When Thought Is Untrammeled; When Worship Shall Consist In Doing Useful Things; When Religion Means The Discharge Of Obligations To Our Fellow-men, Then, And Not Until Then, Will The World Be Civilized.

It Seems To Me That If There Is Some Infinite Being Who Wants Us To Think Alike He Would Have Made Us Alike.

To Give Up Your Individuality Is To Annihilate Yourself.

Science Built The Academy, Superstition The Inquisition.

In The Presence Of Eternity, The Mountains Are As Transient As The Clouds.

Love Is The Only Bow On Life's Dark Cloud. It Is The Morning And The Evening Star. It Shines Upon The Cradle Of The Babe, And Sheds Its Radiance On 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—kindler Of Every Fire On Every Hearth. It Was The First To Dream Of Immortality. It Fills The World With Melody, For Music Is The Voice Of Love.

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.

Just To The Extent That The Bible Was Appealed To In Matters Of Science, Science Was Retarded; And Just To The Extent That Science Has Been Appealed To In Matters Of Religion, Religion Has Advanced - So That Now The Object Of Intelligent Religionists Is To Adopt A Creed That Will Bear The Test And Criticism Of Science.

Civilization Has Gotten Further And Further From The So-called 'natural' Man, Who Uses All His Faculties: Perception, Invention, Improvisation.

The Meanest Hut With Love In It Is A Palace Fit For The Gods, And A Palace Without Love Is A Den Only Fit For Wild Beasts.

When I Became Convinced That The Universe Is Natural, That All The Ghosts And Gods Are Myths, There Entered Into My Brain, Into My Soul, Into Every Drop Of My Blood The Sense, The Feeling, The Joy Of Freedom. The Walls Of My Prison Crumbled And Fell. The Dungeon Was Flooded With Light And All The Bolts And Bars And Manacles Became Dust.

All Prayers Die In The Air Which They Uselessly Agitate.

Only A Few Years Ago There Was No Person Too Ignorant To Successfully Answer Charles Darwin; And The More Ignorant He Was The More Cheerfully He Undertook The Task.

If There Be Gods We Cannot Help Them, But We Can Assist Our Fellow Men. We Cannot Love The Inconceivable, But We Can Love Wife And Child And Friend.

If There Is A God

You See, After All, Few Rich Men Own Their Property. The Property Owns Them.

The Clergy Know That I Know That They Know That They Do Not Know.

Positive Atheism

I Am A Believer In Liberty . That Is My Religion To Give To Every Other Human Being Every Right That I Claim For Myself, And I Grant To Every Other Human Being, Not The Right Because It Is His Right But Instead Of Granting I Declare That It Is His Right, To Attack Every Doctrine That I Maintain, To Answer Every Argument That I May Urge In Other Words, He Must Have Absolute Freedom Of Speech.

Freedom Of Speech

Secularism Is A Religion, A Religion That Is Understood. It Has No Mysteries, No Mumblings, No Priests, No Ceremonies, No Falsehoods, No Miracles, And No Persecutions.

The Old Testament Filled This World With Tyranny And Injustice, And The New Gives Us A Future Filled With Pain For Nearly All Of The Sons Of Men. The Old Testament Describes The Hell Of The Past, And The New The Hell Of The Future.

Give To Every Human Being Every Right That You Claim For Yourself.

Great Virtues May Draw Attention From Defects, They Cannot Sanctify Them. A Pebble Surrounded By Diamonds Remains A Common Stone, And A Diamond Surrounded By Pebbles Is Still A Gem.

I Have Always Noticed That The People Who Have The Smallest Souls Make The Most Fuss About Getting Them Saved.

They Say: Belief Is Important. I Say: No, Actions Are Important. Judge By Deed, Not By Creed.

Where Is The Soul? . . . I Refuse To Believe Anything Of That Kind Without Proof. The Idea That, As Soon As A Man's Breath Leaves His Body, The Soul Flops Out Like A Chicken's Head And Flies Off Into Space To Find A Lodgment Where There [are] Harps And Haloes. Too Much For Me.

On Every Hand There Seems To Be Design To Defeat Design. If God Created Man - If He Is The Father Of Us All, Why Did He Make The Criminals, The Insane, The Deformed And Idiotic? Should The Mother, Who Clasps To Her Breast An Idiot Child, Thank God?

It Cannot Be Too Often Repeated, That Truth Scorns The Assistance Of Miracle.

If I Owe Smith Ten Dollars And God Forgives Me, That Doesn't Pay Smith.

All Religious Systems Enslave The Mind. Certain Things Are Demanded-certain Things Must Be Believed-certain Things Must Be Done-and The Man Who Becomes The Subject Or Servant Of This Superstition Must Give Up All Idea Of Indivuality Or Hope Of Intellectual Growth Or Progress.

I Thank Thee, Mother Nature, That Thou Hast Put Ingenuity Enough In The Brain Of A Child, When Attacked By A Brutal Parent, To Throw Up A Little Breastwork In The Shape Of A Lie.

It Is With Men As With Other Things. The Mullein Needs Only A Year, But The Oak A Century, And The Greatest Men Are Those Who Have Continued To Grow As Long As They Have Lived.

Every Man Who Expresses An Honest Thought Is A Soldier In The Army Of Intellectual Liberty.

To Destroy Guide-boards That Point In The Wrong Direction . . . To Drive The Fiend Of Fear From The Mind . . . Is The Task Of The Freethinker.

Catholicism Is Contrary To Human Liberty. Catholicism Bases Salvation Upon Belief. Catholicism Teaches Man To Trample His Reason Under Foot. And For That Reason It Is Wrong.

It Is Perfectly Delightful To Take Advantage Of The Conscientious Labors Of Those Who Go Through And Through Volume After Volume, Divide With Infinite Patience The Gold From The Dross, And Present Us With The Pure And Shining Coin. Such Men May Be Likened To Bees Who Save Us Numberless Journeys By Giving Us The Fruit Of Their Own.

I Read The Other Day An Account Of A Meeting Between John Knox And John Calvin. Imagine A Dialogue Between A Pestilence And A Famine!

The Church Demonstrated The Falsity And Folly Of Darwin's Theories By Showing That They Contradicted The Mosaic Account Of Creation, And Now That The Theories Of Darwin Having Been Fairly Established, The Church Says That The Mosaic Account Is True Because It Is In Harmony With Darwin. Now, If It Should Turn Out That Darwin Was Mistaken, What Then?

Honest Investigation Is Utterly Impossible Within The Pale Of Any Church, For The Reason, That If You Think The Church Is Right You Will Not Investigate, And If You Think It Wrong, The Church Will Investigate You.

And Yet This Same Deity Says To Me, Resist Not Evil; Pray For Those That Despitefully Use You; Love Your Enemies, But I Will Eternally Damn Mine. It Seems To Me That Even Gods Should Practice What They Preach.

Liberty Is The Condition Of Progress. Without Liberty, There Remains Only Barbarism. Without Liberty, There Can Be No Civilization.

The Emperor Constantine, Who Lifted Christianity Into Power, Murdered His Wife Fausta, And His Eldest Son Crispus, The Same Year That He Convened The Council Of Nice To Decide Whether Jesus Christ Was A Man Or The Son Of God. The Council Decided That Christ Was Consubstantial With The Father. This Was In The Year 325. We Are Thus Indebted To A Wife-murderer For Settling The Vexed Question Of The Divinity Of The Savior.

I Have One Sentiment For Soldiers Living And Dead: Cheers For The Living; Tears For The Dead.

I Want No Heaven For Which I Must Give My Reason; No Happiness In Exchange For My Liberty, And No Immortality That Demands The Surrender Of My Individuality. Better Rot In The Windowless Tomb, To Which There Is No Door But The Red Mouth Of The Pallid Worm, Than To Wear The Jeweled Collar Of A God.

Courage Without Conscience Is A Wild Beast.

At Thirty Most Men Have Prejudices Rather Than Opinions-that Is To Say, Rather Than Judgments-and Few Men Have Lived To Be Sixty Without Materially Modifying The Opinions They Held At Thirty.

One Good Schoolmaster Is Worth A Thousand Priests.

I Admit That Reason Is A Small And Feeble Flame, A Flickering Torch By Stumblers Carried In The Star-less Night, - Blown And Flared By Passion's Storm, - And Yet, It Is The Only Light. Extinguish That, And Nought Remains.

All The Professors In All The Religious Colleges In This Country Rolled Into One, Would Not Equal Charles Darwin.

He [the Improved Man] Will Enjoy Not Only The Sunshine Of Life, But Will Bear With Fortitude The Darkest Days. He Will Have No Fear Of Death. About The Grave, There Will Be No Terrors, And His Life Will End As Serenely As The Sun Rises.

Mental Slavery Is Mental Death, And Every Man Who Has Given Up His Intellectual Freedom Is The Living Coffin Of His Dead Soul.

We Are Told In The Pentateuch, That God, The Father Of Us All, Gave Thousands Of Maidens, After Having Killed Their Fathers, Their Mothers, And Their Brothers, To Satisfy The Brutal Lusts Of Savage Men. If There Be A God, I Pray Him To Write In His Book, Opposite My Name, That I Denied This Lie For Him.

Commerce Makes Friends, Religion Makes Enemies; The One Enriches, And The Other Impoverishes; The One Thrives Best Where The Truth Is Told, The Other Where Falsehoods Are Believed.

It Is An Old Habit With Theologians To Beat The Living With The Bones Of The Dead.

Whoever Imagines Himself A Favorite With God Holds Others In Contempt.

We Are Not Accountable For The Sins Of "adam".

Ignorance Worships Mystery; Reason Explains It; The One Grovels, The Other Soars.

Most Men Are Followers, And Implicitly Rely Upon The Judgment Of Others. They Mistake Solemnity For Wisdom, And Regard A Grave Countenance As The Title Page And Preface To A Most Learned Volume. So They Are Easily Imposed Upon By Forms, Strange Garments, And Solemn Ceremonies. And When The Teaching Of Parents, The Customs Of Neighbors, And The General Tongue Approve And Justify A Belief Or Creed, No Matter How Absurd, It Is Hard Even For The Strongest To Hold The Citadel Of His Soul. In Each Country, In Defence Of Each Religion, The Same Arguments Would Be Urged.

I Would Rather That We All Should Go To Eternal Chaos, To Black And Starless Night, Than That Just One Soul Should Suffer Eternal Agony.

Every Man Is Dishonest Who Lives Upon The Labor Of Others, No Matter If He Occupies A Throne.

Economic Inequality

Who Can Estimate The Misery That Has Been Caused By This Infamous Doctrine Of Eternal Punishment? Think Of The Lives It Has Blighted-of The Tears It Has Caused-of The Agony It Has Produced. Think Of The Millions Who Have Been Driven To Insanity By This Most Terrible Of Dogmas. This Doctrine Renters God The Basest And Most Cruel Being In The Universe. ... There Is Nothing More Degrading Than To Worship Such A God.

For Myself, I Have But Little Confidence In Any Business, Or Enterprise, Or Investment, That Promises Dividends Only After The Death Of The Stockholders.

The Falling Leaf That Tells Of Autumn's Death Is, In A Subtler Sense, A Prophecy Of Spring.

No Man Should Kill Himself As Long As He Can Be Of The Least Use To Anybody, And If You Cannot Find Some Person That You Are Willing To Do Something For, Find A Good Dog And Take Care Of Him. You Have No Idea How Much Better You Will Feel.

As Far As I Am Concerned I Wish To Be Out On The High Seas. I Wish To Take My Chances With Wind, And Wave, And Star. And I Had Rather Go Down In The Glory And Grandeur Of The Storm, Than Rot In Any Orthodox Harbor.

To Know That The Bible Is The Literature Of A Barbarous People, To Know That It Is Uninspired, To Be Certain That The Supernatural Does Not And Cannot Exist - All This Is But The Beginning Of Wisdom.

Death Is Only Perfect Rest.

Do Not Tell Me That You Have Got To Be Rich! We Have A False Standard Of Greatness In The United States. We Think Here That A Man Must Be Great, That He Must Be Notorious; That He Must Be Extremely Wealthy, Or That His Name Must Be Upon The Putrid Lips Of Rumor. It Is All A Mistake. It Is Not Necessary To Be Rich Or To Be Great, Or To Be Powerful, To Be Happy. The Happy Man Is The Successful Man. Happiness Is The Legal Tender Of The Soul.joy Is Wealth.

The First Step Is For Man To Cease To Be The Slave Of Man. The Second, Is To Cease To Be The Slave Of The Monsters Of His Own Creation, The Ghosts And Phantoms Of The Air.

Nothing Could Add To The Horror Of Hell, Except The Presence Of Its Creator, God.

We Do Not Need The Forgiveness Of God, But Of Each Other And Of Ourselves.

A False Friend, An Unjust Judge, A Braggart, Hypocrite, And Tyrant, Sincere In Hatred, Jealous, Vain And Revengeful, False In Promise, Honest In Curse, Suspicious, Ignorant, Infamous And Hideous-such Is The God Of The Pentateuch.

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

Liberty Cannot Be Sacrificed For The Sake Of Anything.

If I Go To Heaven I Want To Take My Reason With Me.

He Was A Worshiper Of Liberty, A Friend Of The Oppressed. A Thousand Times I Have Heard Him Quote These Words: 'for Justice All Place A Temple, And All Season, Summer.' He Believed That Happiness Is The Only Good, Reason The Only Torch, Justice The Only Worship, Humanity The Only Religion, And Love The Only Priest. He Added To The Sum Of Human Joy; And Were Every One To Whom He Did Some Loving Service To Bring A Blossom To His Grave, He Would Sleep Tonight Beneath A Wilderness Of Flowers. . . .

In My Judgment, The Deists Were All Successfully Answered. The God Of Nature Is Certainly As Bad As The God Of The Old Testament. It Is Only When We Discard The Idea Of A Deity, The Idea Of Cruelty Or Goodness In Nature, That We Are Able Ever To Bear With Patience The Ills Of Life. I Feel That I Am Neither A Favorite Nor A Victim. Nature Neither Loves Nor Hates Me.

All That Is Necessary, As It Seems To Me, To Convince Any Reasonable Person That The Bible Is Simply And Purely Of Human Invention - Of Barbarian Invention - Is To Read It. 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.

Of Course, Ministers Look Upon Theaters As Rival Attractions, And Most Of Their Hatred Is Born Of Business Views. They Think People Ought To Be Driven To Church By Having All Other Places Closed. In My Judgment The Theater Has Done Good, While The Church Has Done Harm. The Drama Never Has Insisted Upon Burning Anybody. Persecution Is Not Born Of The Stage.

What Has Religion To Do With Facts? Nothing.

The First Duty Of Man Is To Support Himself - To See To It That He Does Not Become A Burden. His Next Duty Is To Help Others If He Has A Surplus, And If He Really Believes They Deserve To Be Helped.

Crimes Were Committed To Punish Crimes, And Crimes Were Committed To Prevent Crimes. The World Has Been Filled With Prisons And Dungeons, With Chains And Whips, With Crosses And Gibbets, With Thumbscrews And Racks, With Hangmen And Heads-men — And Yet These Frightful Means And Instrumentalities Have Committed Far More Crimes Than They Have Prevented.... Ignorance, Filth, And Poverty Are The Missionaries Of Crime. As Long As Dishonorable Success Outranks Honest Effort — As Long As Society Bows And Cringes Before The Great Thieves, There Will Be Little Ones Enough To Fill The Jails.

Diderot Took The Ground That, If Orthodox Religion Be True Christ Was Guilty Of Suicide. Having The Power To Defend Himself He Should Have Used It.

The Most Important Thing In This World Is Liberty. More Important Than Food Or Clothes - More Important Than Gold Or Houses Or Lands - More Important Than Art Or Science - More Important Than All Religions, Is The Liberty Of Man.

The Closer I'm Bound In Love To You, The Closer I Am To Free.

Whoever Increases The Sum Of Human Joy, Is A Worshiper. He Who Adds To The Sum Of Human Misery, Is A Blasphemer.

I Do Not Believe In Loving Enemies; I Have Pretty Hard Work To Love My Friends.

Give Me The Storm And Tempest Of Thought And Action, Rather Than The Dead Calm Of Ignorance And Faith! Banish Me From Eden When You Will; But First Let Me Eat Of The Fruit Of The Tree Of Knowledge!

In Nature There Are Neither Rewards Nor Punishments; There Are Consequences.

Meekness Is The Mask Of Malice.

An Infinite God Ought To Be Able To Protect Himself, Without Going In Partnership With State Legislatures. Certainly He Ought Not So To Act That Laws Become Necessary To Keep Him From Being Laughed At. No One Thinks Of Protecting Shakespeare From Ridicule, By The Threat Of Fine And Imprisonment.

There Is No Slavery But Ignorance.

Our Ignorance Is God; What We Know Is Science. When We Abandon The Doctrine That Some Infinite Being Created Matter And Force, And Enacted A Code Of Laws For Their Government ... The Real Priest Will Then Be, Not The Mouth-piece Of Some Pretended Deity, But The Interpreter Of Nature.

We Rise By Lifting Others.

Small People Delight In What They Call Consistency-that Is, It Gives Them Immense Pleasure To Say That They Believe Now Exactly As They Did Ten Years Ago. This Simply Amounts To A Certificate That They Have Not Grown-that They Have Not Developed-and That They Know Just As Little Now As They Ever Did. The Highest Possible Conception Of Consistency Is To Be True To The Knowledge Of Today, Without The Slightest Reference To What Your Opinion Was Years Ago.

There Is The Same Difference Between Talent And Genius That There Is Between A Stone Mason And A Sculptor

Liberty A Word Without Which All Other Words Are Vain.

There May Or May Not Be A Supreme Ruler Of The Universe-but We Are Certain That Man Exists, And We Believe That Freedom Is The Condition Of Progress; That It Is The Sunshine Of The Mental And Moral World, And That Without It Man Will Go Back To The Den Of Savagery, And Wll Become The Fit Associate Of Wild And Ferocious Beasts.

When One Of Your Children Tells A Lie, Be Honest With Him; Tell Him That You Have Told Hundreds Of Them Yourself. Tell Him It Is Not The Best Way; That You Have Tried It. Tell Him As The Man Did In Maine When His Boy Left Home: "john, Honesty Is The Best Policy; I Have Tried Both."

The Hands That Help Are Better Far / Than Lips That Pray. / Love Is The Ever Gleaming Star / That Leads The Way, / That Shines, Not On Vague Worlds Of Bliss, / But On A Paradise In This.

Let Us Agree Not To Step On Each Other’s Feet.

Commerce Is The Great Civilizer.

If There Is A God Who Will Damn His Children Forever, I Would Rather Go To Hell Than To Go To Heaven And Keep The Society Of Such An Infamous Tyrant.

If There Is A God

Hope Is The Only Bee That Makes Honey Without Flowers.

Blasphemy Is What An Old Dogma Screams At A New Truth.

The Only Thing That Makes Life Endurable In This World Is Human Love, And Yet, According To Christianity, That Is The Very Thing That We Are Not To Have In The Other World. We Are To Be So Taken Up With Jesus And Angels, That We Shall Care Nothing About Our Brothers And Sisters That Have Been Damned. We Shall Be So Carried Away With The Music Of The Harp That We Shall Not Even Hear The Wail Of Father And Mother. Such A Religion Is A Disgrace To Human Nature.

I Want It So That Every Minister Will Be Not A Parrot, Not An Owl Sitting Upon A Dead Limb Of The Tree Of Knowledge And Hooting The Hoots That Have Been Hooted For Eighteen Hundred Years. But I Want It So That Each One Can Be An Investigator, A Thinker; And I Want To Make His Congregation Grand Enough So That They Will Not Only Allow Him To Think, But Will Demand That He Shall Think, And Give To Them The Honest Truth Of His Thought.

No God Can Put A Man In Hell In Another World, Who Has Made A Little Heaven In This. God Cannot Make A Man Miserable If That Man Has Made Somebody Else Happy.

I Am Anxious To Give Away Information, For It Is Only By Giving It Away That You Can Keep It. When You Have Told It, You Remember It. It Is With Information As It Is With Liberty, The Only Way To Be Dead Sure Of It Is To Give It To Other People.

It Is Labor That Has Made The World A Fit Habitation For The Human Race.

The Moment You Introduce A Despotism In The World Of Thought, You Succeed In Making Hypocrites - And You Get In Such A Position That You Never Know What Your Neighbor Thinks.

The Undressed Is Vulgar; The Nude Is Pure, And The Well-dressed Tainted.

He Loves His Country Best Who Strives To Make It Best.

There Are Treasures In Books That All The Money In The World Cannot Buy, But The Poorest Laborer Can Have For Nothing.

If The Reason I Give Is A Good One, You Will Act Upon It. If It Is A Bad One I Cannot Make It Better By Piling Epithet Upon Epithet. There Is No Logic In Abuse; There Is No Argument In An Epithet.

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.

Intellect, Without Heart, Is Infinitely Cruel. . . . So That, After All, The Real Aristocracy Must Be That Of Goodness Where The Intellect Is Directed By The Heart.

The Destroyer Of Weeds, Thistles, And Thorns Is A Benefactor Whether He Soweth Grain Or Not.

Making A Difference

Do Not Trust Those In Whom The Compulsion To Punish Is Strong.

Had He Been Willing To Live A Hypocrite, He Would Have Been Respectable, He At Least Could Have Died Surrounded By Other Hypocrites, And At His Death There Would Have Been An Imposing Funeral, With Miles Of Carriages, Filled With Hypocrites, And Above His Hypocritical Dust There Would Have Been A Hypocritical Monument Covered With Lies.

They Who Stand With Breaking Hearts Around This Little Grave, Need Have No Fear. The Larger And The Nobler Faith In All That Is, And Is To Be, Tells Us That Death, Even At Its Worst, Is Only Perfect Rest ... The Dead Do Not Suffer.

A Good Deed Is The Best Prayer.

Orthodox Christians Have The Habit Of Claiming All Great Men, All Men Who Have Held Important Positions, Men Of Reputation, Men Of Wealth. As Soon As The Funeral Is Over Clergymen Begin To Relate Imaginary Conversations With The Deceased, And In A Very Little While The Great Man Is Changed To A Christian - Possibly To A Saint.

As More People Become More Intelligent They Care Less For Preachers And More For Teachers.

The Way To Be Happy Is To Make Others So.

As Long As Every Question Is Answered By The Word "god," Scientific Inquiry Is Simply Impossible.

Religion Supports Nobody. It Has To Be Supported. It Produces No Wheat, No Corn; It Ploughs No Land; It Fells No Forests. It Is A Perpetual Mendicant. It Lives On The Labors Of Others, And Then Has The Arrogance To Pretend That It Supports The Giver.

He Who Commends The Brutalities Of The Past, Sows The Seeds Of Future Crimes.

Colleges Are Places Where Pebbles Are Polished And Diamonds Are Dimmed.

The Old Man Has Been Long At The Fair. He Is Acquainted With The Jugglers At The Booths. His Curiosity Has Been Satisfied. He No Longer Cares For The Exceptional, The Monstrous, The Marvelous And Deformed. He Looks Through And Beyond The Gilding, The Glitter And Gloss, Not Only Of Things, But Of Conduct, Of Manners, Theories, Religions And Philosophies. He Sees Clearer. The Light No Longer Shines In His Eyes.

All Religion Is Slavery.

Trending Author

Alexander Payne

Camille Pissarro

Casper Van Dien

Category