Robert Green Ingersoll

Robert Green Ingersoll

25 quotes

As an American agnostic, lawyer, politician and orator, Robert Green Ingersoll earned a lasting place in the canon of memorable quotations. With equal ease, Robert Green Ingersoll moved between Death and Courage, finding connections others missed. 37 of Robert Green Ingersoll's sharpest quotes live here, spanning themes of Death, Courage, Hope, Happiness, and God. A line that stays with you: "Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity."

“Reason, observation, and experience the holy trinity of science.”

— Robert Green Ingersoll

Experience

All Quotes by 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

Death

“I would rather live and love where death is king than have eternal life where love is not.”

— Robert Green Ingersoll

Death

“Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.”

— Robert Green Ingersoll

Religion

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

— Robert Green Ingersoll

Happiness

“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

Good

“Courage without conscience is a wild beast.”

— Robert Green Ingersoll

Courage

“Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.”

— Robert Green Ingersoll

Hope

“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

Love

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

— Robert Green Ingersoll

Education

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

— Robert Green Ingersoll

Hope

“I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous - if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men.”

— Robert Green Ingersoll

Men

“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

Age

“My creed is that: Happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to make others so.”

— Robert Green Ingersoll

Happiness

“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

Death

“Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god market was fairly glutted and heaven crammed with these phantoms.”

— Robert Green Ingersoll

God

“If I owe Smith ten dollars and God forgives me, that doesn't pay Smith.”

— Robert Green Ingersoll

God

“In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments there are consequences.”

— Robert Green Ingersoll

Nature

“An honest God is the noblest work of man.”

— Robert Green Ingersoll

God

“Reason, observation, and experience the holy trinity of science.”

— Robert Green Ingersoll

Experience

“The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenseless. He stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.”

— Robert Green Ingersoll

Strength