At the bottom of the ladder is Catholicism, and at the top is Science

The inspiration of the Bible depends upon the ignorance of the gentleman who reads it.

Civilization has gotten further and further from the so-called ‘natural’ man, who uses all his faculties: perception, invention, improvisation.

The undressed is vulgar – the nude is pure

Heresy is what the minority believe, it is the real name given by the powerful to the doctrine of the weak

{The final resolutions at Robert Ingersoll’s funeral, quoted here}Whereas, in the order of nature — that nature which moves with unerring certainty in obedience to fixed laws — Robert G. Ingersoll has gone to that...

A God who gave his entire time for 40 years to the work of converting three millions of people, and succeeded in getting only two men, and not a single woman, decent enough to enter...

It is a blessed thing that in every age someone has had the individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions

My principal objections to orthodox religion are two – slavery here and hell hereafter

It is impossible to conceive of a more thoroughly despicable, hateful, and arrogant being, than the Jewish god

What has religion to do with facts? Nothing

A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether it is...

The intellectual advancement of man depends on how often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth

If the people were a little more ignorant, astrology would flourish – if a little more enlightened, religion would perish

With soap, baptism is a good thing

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.

There will never be a generation of great men until there has been a generation of free women

The Declaration of Independence was a denial, and the first denial of a nation, of the infamous dogma that God confers the right upon one man to govern others

Anger blows out the lamp of the mind. In the examination of a great and important question, everyone should be serene, slow-pulsed and calm.

{Miller, who was president of American Federation of Musicians, had this to say about Robert Ingersoll at his funeral}On behalf of 15,000 professional musicians, comprising the American Federation of Musicians, permit me to extend to...

Those who have loved God most have loved men least

Kindness is the sunshine in which virtue grows.

To prevent famine, one plow is worth a million sermons, and even patent medicines will cure more diseases than all the prayers uttered since the beginning of the world

Justice should remove the bandage from her eyes long enough to distinguish between the vicious and the unfortunate.

I have not the slightest confidence in ‘spiritual manifestations

If the Bible is true, it needs no inspiration, and – if not true, inspiration can do it no good

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

It is said that from Mount Sinai God gave, amid thunderings and lightnings, ten commandments for the guidance of mankind; and yet among them is not found Thou shalt believe The Bible

If all the bones of all the victims of the Catholic Church could be gathered together, a monument higher than all the pyramids would rise

My objection to Christianity is that it is infinitely cruel, infinitely selfish, and I might add infinitely absurd

The inspired Bible has been and is the greatest curse of Christendom, and will so remain as long as it is held to be inspired

There is no slavery but ignorance.

Our hope of immortality does not come from any religions, but nearly all religions come from that hope

{Stockton, a playwright who performed plays about Robert Ingersoll, gives the four moments in Ingersoll’s life that shaped him, first being the death of his father, who was a reverend}Despite their opposing religious views, the...

It is better to deserve without receiving, than to receive without deserving

Courage without conscience is a wild beast.

Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy a coffin

There are some of his sayings which show him to have been a devout Jew, others that he wished to destroy Judaism, others showing that he held all people except the Jews in contempt and...

The present is the necessary product of all the past, the necessary cause of all the future

The history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of infidels

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

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

Surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought, at least, you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and depth; that there are no walls...

Is it not wonderful that the creator of all worlds, infinite in power and wisdom, could not hold his own against the gods of wood and stone? Is it not strange that after he had...

Laughing has always been considered by theologians as a crime

One good schoolmaster is worth a thousand priests

Religion has not civilized man, man has civilized religion

Robert Ingersoll’s character was as nearly perfect as it is possible for the character of mortal man to be… none sweeter or nobler had ever blessed the world. The example of his life was of...

God so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn a large majority of the human race

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...