Quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll

“He who refuses to stoop, who cannot be bribed by the promise of success or the fear of failure - who walks the highway of the right, and in disaster stands erect, is the only victor.”

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

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

“When every church becomes a school, every cathedral a university, every clergyman a teacher, and all their hearers brave and honest thinkers, then - and not until then - will the dream of poet, pat...”

“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 lifti...”

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

“I say that no man can be greater than the man who bravely and heroically sacrifices his life for the good of others. No man can be greater than the one who meets death face to face, and yet will no...”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“Intelligence, integrity and courage are the great pillars that support the State. Above all, the citizens of a free nation should honor the brave and independent man - the man of stainless integrit...”

“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 o...”

“There can be goodness without much intelligence - but it seems to me that perfect intelligence and perfect goodness must go together.”

“It is hard to conceive of the utter demoralization, of the political blindness and immorality, of the patriotic dishonesty, of the cruelty and degradation of a people who supplemented the incompara...”

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

“Every religion in the world has denounced every other religion as a fraud. That proves to me that they all tell the truth - about others.”

“I regard the rights of men and women equal. In Love's fair realm, husband and wife are king and queen, sceptered and crowned alike, and seated on the self-same throne.”

“I do not believe anything comes by chance. I regard the present as the necessary child of a necessary past.”

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

“We need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death.”