Every man who expresses an honest thought is a soldier in the army of intellectual liberty

If we have the right to use our reason, we certainly have the right to act in accordance with it, and no god can have the right to punish us for such action

Happiness is not a reward / it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment / it is a result.

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...

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...

There is not in all the pulpits ingenuity enough to harmonize these ignorant and stupid contradictions

Infidels in all ages have battled for the rights of man, and have at all times been the fearless advocates of liberty and justice

The hands that help are better far than the lips that pray

The hands that help are holier than the lips that pray

And we are called upon to worship such a God; to get upon our knees and tell him that he is good, that he is merciful, that he is just, that he is love

No day can be so sacred but that the laugh of a little child will make it holier still

Robert Ingersoll came to [a small Midwest town] to speak . . . , and after he had gone the question of the divinity of Christ for months occupied the minds of the citizens.

A crime against god is a demonstrated impossibility

Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment

Give the church a place in the Constitution, let her touch once more the sword of power, and the priceless fruit of all ages will turn to ashes on the lips of men

He loves his country best who strives to make it best

In all ages hypocrites, called priests, have put crowns upon the heads of thieves, called kings

It (The Bible) has lost power in the proportion that man has gained knowledge

A believer is a bird in a cage, a freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing

In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.

He who commends the brutalities of the past, sows the seeds of future crimes

The more liberty you give away the more you will have.

Whoever imagines himself a favorite with God holds others in contempt

The real oppressor, enslaver, and corrupter of the people is the Bible

Religion is one of the phases of thought through which the world is passing

{Letter from Fawcett to the great Robert Ingersoll, 1894}I do so wish, that, in all these big questions, literary men would take you more for a guide than they do, or seem to do. You...

According to this account the promise of the devil was fulfilled to the very letter, Adam and Eve did not die, and they did become as gods, knowing good and evil

Few rich men own their own property. The property owns them.

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...

The Bible was written by barbarians in a barbarous, coarse and vulgar age

Let us put theology out of religion. Theology has always sent the worst to heaven, the best to hell.

These contradictions are gross and palpable and demonstrate that the New Testament is not inspired, and that many of its statements must be false

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 relieved...

A place where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed.

The Church has always been willing to swap off treasures in heaven for cash down.

I suppose it can be truthfully said that Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity

There is the same difference between talent and genius that there is between a stone mason and a sculptor

The great religious historian, Eusebius, ingenuously remarks that in his history he carefully omitted whatever tended to discredit the church, and that he piously magnified all that conduced to her glory

The Old Testament describes the hell of the past, and the New the hell of the future

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

A good deed is the best prayer

You have no right to erect your toll-gate upon the highways of thought

To argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead

If we should put god in the Constitution there would be no room left for man

Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.

Calvin was as near like the God of the Old Testament as his health permitted

This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves

The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know

In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.