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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.

-Robert Green Ingersoll

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The Only Thing That

Robert Green Ingersoll

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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.

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In The Night Of Death, Hope Sees A Star, And Listening Love Can Hear The Rustle Of A Wing.

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

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.

Ignorance Is The Worst Form Of Slavery. (paraphrased)

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.

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

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.

The Idea That There Is A God Who Rewards And Punishes, And Who Can Reward, If He So Wishes, The Meanest And Vilest Of The Human Race, So That He Will Be Eternally Happy, And Can Punish The Best Of The Human Race, So That He Will Be Eternally Miserable, Is Subversive Of All Morality.

It Is Told That The Great Angelo, In Decorating A Church, Painted Some Angels Wearing Sandals. A Cardinal Looking At The Picture Said To The Artist: Whoever Saw Angels With Sandals? Angelo Answered With Another Question: Whoever Saw An Angel Barefooted?

The Church Teaches Us That We Can Make God Happy By Being Miserable Ourselves.

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.

In All Ages, Hypocrites, Called Priests, Have Put Crowns Upon The Heads Of Thieves, Called Kings.

If The Money Is Raised By Taxation, Then The Burden Will Fall Where It Ought To Fall, . . . And The Rich And Stingy Will No Longer Be Able To Evade The Duties Of Citizenship And Of Humanity.

My Principal Objections To Orthodox Religion Are Two: Slavery Here And Hell Hereafter.

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.

No Man Has A Right To Leave His Wife To Fight The Battle Alone If He Is Able To Help. No Man Has A Right To Desert His Children If He Can Possibly Be Of Use. As Long As He Can Add To The Comfort Of Those He Loves, As Long As He Can . . . Be Of Any Use, It Is His Duty To Remain.

You Cannot Show Real Respect To Your Parents By Perpetuating Their Errors.... Do You Consider That The Inventor Of A Steel Plow Cast A Slur Upon His Father Who Scratched The Ground With A Wooden One? I Do Not Consider That An Invention By The Son Is A Slander Upon The Father; I Regard Each Invention Simply As An Improvement; And Every Father Should Be Exceedingly Proud Of An Ingenious Son. If Mr. Talmage Has A Son, It Will Be Impossible For Him To Honor His Father Except By Differing With Him.

If We Should Put God In The Constitution There Would Be No Room Left For Man.

Religion Is One Of The Phases Of Thought Through Which The World Is Passing.

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.

Intellect, Without Heart, Is Infinitely Cruel. . . .

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

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.

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

Spirituality For The Most Part Is A Mask Worn By Idleness, Arrogance And Greed.

Every Library Is An Arsenal.

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

Positive Atheism

Like An Armed Warrior, Like A Plumed Knight, James G. Blaine Marched Down The Halls Of The American Congress And Threw His Shining Lance Full And Fair Against The Brazen Foreheads Of The Defamers Of His Country, And The Maligners Of His Honor.

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.

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

The Hope Of Science Is The Perfection Of The Human Race. The Hope Of Theology Is The Salvation Of A Few, And The Damnation Of Almost Everybody.

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

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

Wait Until The World Is Free Before You Write A Creed. In This Creed There Will Be But One Word -- Liberty.

He Who Treats His Friends And Enemies Alike, Has Neither Love Nor Justice.

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.

Some President Wishes To Be Re-elected, And Thereupon Speaks About The Bible As "the Corner-stone Of American Liberty." This Sentence Is A Mouth Large Enough To Swallow Any Church, And From That Time Forward The Religious People Will Be Citing That Remark Of The Politician To Substantiate The Inspiration Of The Scriptures.

The Present Is The Necessary Product Of All The Past, The Necessary Cause Of All The Future.

If Upon This Earth We Ever Have A Glimpse Of Heaven,it Is When We Pass A Home In Winter, At Night,and Through The Windows, The Curtains Drawn Aside,we See The Family About The Pleasant Hearth; The Old Lady Knitting; The Cat Playing With The Yarn;the Children Wishing They Had As Many Dolls Or Dollars Or Knivesor Somethings, As There Are Sparks Going Out To Join The Roaring Blast;the Father Reading And Smoking, And The Clouds Rising Like Incense From The Altar Of Domestic Joy.i Never Passed Such A House Without Feeling Thati Had Received A Benediction.

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.

Christianity Did Not Come With Tidings Of Great Joy, But With A Message Of Eternal Grief. It Came With The Threat Of Everlasting Torture On Its Lips. It Meant War On Earth And Perdition Hereafter.

Justice Should Remove The Bandage From Her Eyes Long Enough To Distinguish Between The Vicious And The Unfortunate.

Justice For All

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

The More A Man Knows, The More Willing He Is To Learn-the Less A Man Knows, The More Positive He Is That He Knows Everything.

When Passions And Appetites Are Stronger Than The Intellect, Men Are Savages; When The Intellect Governs The Passions, When The Passions Are Servants, Men Are Civilized. The People Need Education - Facts - Philosophy.

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!

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.

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

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.

Abraham Lincoln Was, In My Judgment, In Many Respects, The Grandest Man Ever President Of The United States. Upon His Monument These Words Should Be Written: "here Sleeps The Only Man In The History Of The World Who, Having Been Clothed With Almost Absolute Power, Never Abused It, Except Upon The Side Of Mercy."

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.

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.

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

The Book, Called The Bible, Is Filled With Passages Equally Horrible, Unjust And Atrocious. This Is The Book To Be Read In Schools In Order To Make Our Children Loving, Kind And Gentle! This Is The Book They Wish To Be Recognized In Our Constitution As The Source Of All Authority And Justice!

An Infinite Personality Is An Infinite Impossibility.

Who Can Over Estimate The Progress Of The World If All The Money Wasted In Superstition Could Be Used To Enlighten, Elevate And Civilize Mankind?

I Belong To The Great Church Which Holds The World Within Its Starlit Aisles; That Claims The Great And Good Of Every Race And Clime; That Finds With Joy The Grain Of Gold In Every Creed, And Floods With Light And Love The Germs Of Good In Every Soul.

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

Belief Is Not A Matter Of Choice, But Of Conviction.

There Are Some Truths, However, That We Should Never Forget: Superstition Has Always Been The Relentless Enemy Of Science; Faith Has Been A Hater Of Demonstration; Hypocrisy Has Been Sincere Only In Its Dread Of Truth, And All Religions Are Inconsistent With Mental Freedom.

If We Are Immortal It Is A Fact In Nature, And We Are Not Indebted To Priests For It, Nor To Bibles For It, And It Cannot Be Destroyed By Unbelief.

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

One Good Schoolmaster Is Worth A Thousand Priests.

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

Nothing Could Be More Dangerous To The Existence Of This Republic Than To Introduce Religion Into Politics

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.

Strange But True: Those Who Have Loved God Most Have Loved Men Least.

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.

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

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.

Let Every Man Teach His Son, Teach His Daughter, That Labor Is Honorable.

Is Not The History Of Real Civilization The Slow And Gradual Emancipation Of The Intellect, Of The Judgment, From The Mastery Of Passion? Is Not That Man Civilized Whose Reason Sits The Crowned Monarch Of His Brain - Whose Passions Are His Servants?

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

Do The Best That Can Be Done And Then . . . Be Resigned.

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.

Every Church That Has A Standard Higher Than Human Welfare Is Dangerous.

Character Survives; Goodness Lives; Love Is Immortal.

Every Child Should Be Taught That Useful Work Is Worship And That Intelligent Labor Is The Highest Form Of Prayer.

Upon The Great Questions Of Origin, Of Destiny, Of Immortality, Of . . . Other Worlds, Every Honest Man Must Say, 'i Do Not Know.' Upon These Questions, This Is The Creed Of Intelligence.

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."

Martyrdom, As A Rule, Establishes The Sincerity Of The Martyr, Never The Correctness Of His Thought. Things Are True Or False In Themselves.

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

They Say That When God Was In Jerusalem He Forgave His Murderers, But Now He Will Not Forgive An Honest Man For Differing With Him On The Subject Of The Trinity. They Say That God Says To Me, "forgive Your Enemies." I Say, "i Do;" But He Says, "i Will Damn Mine." God Should Be Consistent. If He Wants Me To Forgive My Enemies He Should Forgive His. I Am Asked To Forgive Enemies Who Can Hurt Me. God Is Only Asked To Forgive Enemies Who Cannot Hurt Him. He Certainly Ought To Be As Generous As He Asks Us To Be.

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?

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

Every Human Being Should Be Taught That His First Duty Is To Take Care Of Himself, And That To Be Self-respecting He Must Be Self-supporting. To Live On The Labor Of Others, Either By Force Which Enslaves, Or By Cunning Which Robs, Or By Borrowing Or Begging, Is Wholly Dishonorable. Every Man Should Be Taught Some Useful Art.

God Cannot Send To Eternal Pain A Man Who Has Done Something Toward Improving The Condition Of His Fellow-man. If He Can, I Had Rather Go To Hell Than To Heaven And Keep Company With Such A God.

Arguments Cannot Be Answered By Personal Abuse; There Is No Logic In Slander, And Falsehood, In The Long Run, Defeats Itself.

A Believer Is A Bird In A Cage, A Freethinker Is An Eagle Parting The Clouds With Tireless Wing.

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.

My Objection To Christianity Is That It Is Infinitely Cruel, Infinitely Selfish, And, I Might Add, Infinitely Absurd.

The Unitarian Church Has Done More Than Any Other Church To Substitute Character For Creed, And To Say That A Man Should Be Judged By His Spirit; By The Climate Of His Heart; By The Autumn Of His Generosity; By The Spring Of His Hope; That He Should Be Judged By What He Does; By The Influence That He Exerts, Rather Than By The Mythology He May Believe.

You Cannot Be So Poor That You Cannot Help Somebody.

Shakespeare Has Done Far More For The World Than The Bible.

In Making Up My Mind As To What Mr. Lincoln Really Believed, I Do Not Take Into Consideration The Evidence Of Unnamed Persons Or The Contents Of Anonymous Letters; I Take The Testimony Of Those Who Knew And Loved Him, Of Those To Whom He Opened His Heart And To Whom He Spoke In The Freedom Of Perfect Confidence.

Only The Very Ignorant Are Perfectly Satisfied That They Know. To The Common Man The Great Problems Are Easy. He Has No Trouble In Accounting For The Universe. He Can Tell You The Origin And Destiny Of Man And The Why And Wherefore Of Things.

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.

I Have Had Some Trouble In Regarding Evil As Having Been Intended By Infinite Goodness.

...in Every Religion The Priest Insists On Five Things - First: There Is A God. Second: He Has Made Known His Will. Third: He Has Selected Me To Explain This Message. Fourth: We Will Now Take Up A Collection; And Fifth: Those Who Fail To Subscribe Will Certainly Be Damned.

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

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

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.

If Priests Had Not Been Fond Of Mutton, Lambs Never Would Have Been Sacrified To God. Nothing Was Ever Carried To The Temple That The Priest Could Not Use, And It Always Happened That God Wanted What His Agents Liked.

When Your Little Child Tells A Lie, Do Not Rush At Him As Though The World Were About To Go Into Bankruptcy. Be Honest With Him. A Tyrant Father Will Have Liars For His Children; Do You Know That? A Lie Is Born Of Tyranny Upon The One Hand And Weakness Upon The Other, And When You Rush At A Poor Little Boy With A Club In Your Hand, Of Course He Lies.

I Have Not The Slightest Confidence In 'spiritual Manifestations.'

I Honestly Believe That The Doctrine Of Hell Was Born In The Glittering Eyes Of Snakes That Run In Frightful Coils Watching For Their Prey. I Believe It Was Born With The Yelping, Howling, Growling And Snarling Of Wild Beasts... I Despise It, I Defy It, And I Hate It.

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.

The Way To Be Happy Is To Make Others So.

No Man Of Sense In The Whole World Believes In Devils Any More Than He Does In Mermaids, Vampires, Gorgons, Hydras, Naiads, Dryads, Nymphs, Fairies, The Fountain Of Youth, [or] The Philosopher's Stone. . . .

Every Sect Is A Certificate That God Has Not Plainly Revealed His Will To Man. To Each Reader The Bible Conveys A Different Meaning.

To Avoid Pain We Must Know The Conditions Of Health. For The Accomplishment Of This End We Must Rely Upon Investigation Instead Of Faith, Upon Labor In Place Of Prayer. Most Misery Is Produced By Ignorance. Passions Sow The Seeds Of Pain.

It Is Like Most Other Ancient Books - A Mingling Of Falsehood And Truth, Of Philosophy And Folly - All Written By Men, And Most Of The Men Only Partially Civilized. Some Of Its Laws Are Good - Some Infinitely Barbarous. None Of The Miracles Related Were Performed. . . . Take Out The Absurdities, The Miracles, All That Pertains To The Supernatural - All The Cruel And Barbaric Laws - And To The Remainder I Have No Objection. Neither Would I Have For It Any Great Admiration.

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.

Liberty Cannot Be Sacrificed For The Sake Of Temperance, For The Sake Of Morality, Or For The Sake Of Anything. It Is Of More Value Than Everything. Yet Some People Would Destroy The Sun To Prevent The Growth Of Weeds. Liberty Sustains The Same Relation To All The Virtues That The Sun Does To Life.

A Crime Against God Is A Demonstrated Impossibility.

The Minister Asks, 'what Right Have You To Hope? It Is Sacrilegious To You.' But, Whether The Clergy Like It Or Not, I Shall Always Express My Real Opinion, And Shall Always Be Glad To Say To Those Who Mourn: 'there Is In Death, As I Believe, Nothing Worse Than Sleep. Hope For As Much Better As You Can.'

I Am The Inferior Of Any Man Whose Rights I Trample Under Foot. Men Are Not Superior By Reason Of Accidents Of Race Or Color. They Are Superior Who Have The Best Heart-the Best Brain.

Heresy Is A Cradle; Orthodoxy A Coffin.

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, The Creator Of Ambition, The Author Of Modesty, Of Inquiry, Of Doubt, Of Investigation, Of Progress And Of Civilization.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Every Man That Tried To Destroy The Government, Every Man That Shot At The Holy Flag In Heaven, Every Man That Starved Our Soldiers... Every Man That Wanted To Burn The Negro, Every One That Wanted To Scatter Yellow Fever In The North, Every Man That Opposed Human Liberty, That Regarded The Auction-block As An Altar And The Howling Of The Bloodhound As The Music Of The Union, Every Man Who Wept Over The Corpse Of Slavery, That Thought Lashes On The Naked Back Were A Legal Tender For Labour Performed, Every One Willing To Rob A Mother Of Her Child - Every Solitary One Was A Democrat.

As We Become Civilized We Are Governed Less By Persons And More By Principles. . . . The Best Of All Leaders Is The Man Who Teaches People To Lead Themselves.

Nothing Discloses Real Character Like The Use Of Power. It Is Easy For The Weak To Be Gentle. Most People Can Bear Adversity. But If You Wish To Know What A Man Really Is, Give Him Power. This Is The Supreme Test. It Is The Glory Of Lincoln That, Having Almost Absolute Power, He Never Abused It, Except Upon The Side Of Mercy.

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 Believed Only By That Unhappy Mixture Of Insanity And Ignorance, Called Faith.

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.

Courage Without Conscience Is A Wild Beast.

With Soap, Baptism Is A Good Thing.

The Emblem Of Equal Rights. It Means Free Hands, Free Lips, Self- Government, And The Sovereignty Of The Individual.

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

Twenty Years After The Death Of Luther There Were More Catholics Than When He Was Born. And Twenty Years After The Death Of Voltaire There Were Millions Less Than When He Was Born.

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

Nothing Discloses Real Character Like The Use Of Power.

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

Kindness Is The Sunshine In Which Virtue Grows.

To The Wise Man, To The Wise Nation, The Mistakes Of The Past Are The Torches Of The Present.

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.

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.

Progress Is Born Of Doubt And Inquiry. The Church Never Doubts, Never Inquires. To Doubt Is Heresy, To Inquire Is To Admit That You Do Not Know—the Church Does Neither.

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

The Ministers Are In Duty Bound To Denounce All Intellectual Pride, And Show That We Are Never Quite So Dear To God As When We Admit That We Are Poor, Corrupt And Idiotic Worms; That We Never Should Have Been Born; That We Ought To Be Damned Without The Least Delay.... The Old Creed Is Still Taught. They Still Insist That God Is Infinitely Wise, Powerful And Good, And That All Men Are Totally Depraved. They Insist That The Best Man God Ever Made, Deserved To Be Damned The Moment He Was Finished.

Everyone Should Be Taught The Nobility Of Labor, The Heroism And Splendor Of Honest Effort. As Long As It Is Considered Disgraceful To Labor, Or Aristocratic Not To Labor, The World Will Be Filled With Idleness And Crime, And With Every Possible Moral Deformity.

Christianity Has Made More Lunatics Than It Ever Provided Asylums For.

Love Is Natural. Back Of Allceremony Burns And Will Forever Burn The Sacred Flame. There Has Been No Time In The World's History When That Torch Was Extinguished. In All Ages, In All Climes, Among All People, There Has Been True, Pure, And Unselfish Love.

If This Religion Is True, Then There Is Only One Savior, Only One Narrow Path To Life. Christianity Cannot Live In Peace With Any Other Religion.

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

A Good Deed Is The Best Prayer.

I Do Not Believe In Loving Enemies; I Have Pretty Hard Work To Love My Friends. Neither Do I Believe In Revenge. No Man Can Afford To Keep The Viper Of Revenge In His Heart. But I Believe In Justice, In Self-defense.

The Myth Of Hell Represents All The Meanness, All The Revenge, All The Selfishness, All The Cruelty, All The Hatred, All The Infamy Of Which The Heart Of Man Is Capable.

Intelligence, Guided By Kindness, Is The Highest Wisdom. . . .

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.

Whoever Saw An Angel Barefooted?

Any Doctrine That Will Not Bear Investigation Is Not A Fit Tenant For The Mind Of An Honest Man.

Give Any Orthodox Church The Power, And To-day They Would Punish Heresy With Whip, And Chain, And Fire. As Long As A Church Deems A Certain Belief Essential To Salvation, Just So Long It Will Kill And Burn If It Has The Power.

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

In A World Of Cruelty, Sympathy Is A Crime, And In A World Of Lies, Truth Is Blasphemy.

Christianity Has Such A Contemptible Opinion Of Human Nature That It Does Not Believe A Man Can Tell The Truth Unless Frightened By A Belief In God. No Lower Opinion Of The Human Race Has Ever Been Expressed.

Truth Is The Mother Of Joy. Truth Civilizes, Ennobles And Purifies. The Grandest Ambition That Can Enter The Soul Is To Know The Truth.

They Knew No Better, But I Do Not Propose To Follow The Example Of A Barbarian Because He Was Honestly A Barbarian.

Jehovah Was Not A Moral God. He Had All The Vices And He Lacked All The Virtues. He Generally Carried Out All His Threats, But He Never Faithfully Kept A Promise.

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.

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.

When A Man Really Believes That It Is Necessary To Do A Certain Thing To Be Happy Forever, Or That A Certain Belief Is Necessary To Ensure Eternal Joy, There Is In That Man No Spirit Of Concession. He Divides The Whole World Into Saints And Sinners, Into Believers And Unbelievers, Into God's Sheep And Devil's Goats, Into People Who Will Be Glorified And People Who Are Damned.

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

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.

There Can Be But Little Liberty On Earth While Men Worship A Tyrant In Heaven.

Religion Has Not Civilized Man, Man Has Civilized Religion.

Music Expresses Feeling And Thought, Without Language; It Was Below And Before Speech, And It Is Above And Beyond All Words.

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

Making A Difference

It Has Always Seemed Absurd To Suppose That A God Would Choose For His Companions, During All Eternity, The Dear Souls Whose Highest And Only Ambition Is To Obey.

I Do Not Believe That The Tendency Is To Make Men And Women Brave And Glorious When You Tell Them That There Are Certain Ideas Upon Certain Subjects That They Must Never Express; That They Must Go Through Life With A Pretence As A Shield; That Their Neighbors Will Think Much More Of Them If They Will Only Keep Still; And That Above All Is A God Who Despises One Who Honestly Expresses What He Believes.

Honesty Is The Mother Of Confidence; It Unites, Combines And Solidifies Society. Dishonesty Is Disintegration; It Destroys Confidence; It Brings Social Chaos. . . .

Liberty Is The Breath Of Progress.

To Give Up Your Individuality Is To Annihilate Yourself.

I Have No Confidence In Any Religion That Can Be Demonstrated Only To Children.

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

Love Your Friends And Be Just To Your Enemies.

Hope Is The Consolation Of The World.

The History Of Intellectual Progress Is Written In The Lives Of Infidels.

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.

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.

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.

I Would Rather Smoke One Cigar Than Hear Two Sermons.

The Real Searcher After Truth Will Not Receive The Old Because It Is Old, Or Reject The New Because It Is New. He Will Not Believe Men Because They Are Dead, Or Contradict Them Because They Are Alive. With Him An Utterance Is Worth The Truth, The Reason It Contains, Without The Slightest Regard To The Author. He May Have Been A King Or Serf - A Philosopher Or Servant, - But The Utterance Neither Gains Nor Loses In Truth Or Reason. Its Value Is Absolutely Independent Of The Fame Or Station Of The Man Who Gave It To The World.

There Is In All Artists A Little Of The Vagabond.

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.

When The Will Defies Fear, When Duty Throws The Gauntlet Down To Fate, When Honor Scorns To Compromise With Death - That Is Heroism.

Think Of The Egotism Of A Man Who Believes That An Infinite Being Wants His Praise!

The Only Reason Why We Wish To Exchange Thoughts Is That We Are Different. If We Were All The Same, We Would Die Dumb. No Thought Would Be Expressed After We Found That Our Thoughts Were Precisely Alike. We Differ-our Thoughts Are Different. Therefore The Commerse That We Call Conversation.

Liberty A Word Without Which All Other Words Are Vain.

The Only Evidence, So Far As I Know, About Another Life Is, First, That We Have No Evidence; And Secondly, That We Are Rather Sorry That We Have Not, And Wish We Had.

The History Of The World Shows That When A Mean Thing Was Done, Man Did It; When A Good Thing Was Done, Man Did It.

Memory Is The Miser Of The Mind; Forgetfulness The Spendthrift.

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

There Will Never Be A Generation Of Great Men Until There Has Been A Generation Of Free Women - Of Free Mothers.

We Rise By Lifting Others.

All Prayers Die In The Air Which They Uselessly Agitate.

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.

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