There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for...

true.” If he cannot do this by himself, he is obliged to go to someone who can. This may be a priest or a rabbi, or it may be his superior in the party hierarchy,...

Then, what is sacrelige [sic]? If it is nothing more than a rebellion against dogma, it is eventually as meaningless as the dogma it defies, and they are both become hounds ranting in the high...

The spectacle of what is called religion, or at any rate organised religion, in India and elsewhere, has filled me with horror and I have frequently condemned it and wished to make a clean sweep...

Science is opposed to theological dogmas because science is founded on fact. To me, the universe is simply a great machine which never came into being and never will end. The human being is no...

When the great ship containing the hopes and aspirations of the world, when the great ship freighted with mankind goes down in the night of death, chaos and disaster, I am willing to go down...

People create sins out of nothing and in doing so have enslaved their fellow man! Man is not bound by sin but man is bound by the idea that almost everything he is doing is...

The humanitarian philosophies that have been developed (sometimes under some religious banner and invariably in the face of religious opposition) are human inventions, as the name implies – and our species deserves the credit. I...

Its all about perspective, that is how you look at things. Your own thoughts and outlook defines whether an experience, event, situation whatever is good or bad. And your definition determines your response.

The dogma of the impossibility of determining the atomic constitution of substances, which until recently was advocated with such fervor by the most able chemists, is beginning to be abandoned and forgotten; and one can...

Dogma is the guardian of mystery. The doctrines are spiritually significant in ways that we cannot fathom.

Evidence is of no longer consequence when hope enters the fray, and this is where faith is born—a seemingly abundant commodity certain powerful organizations feed on fervently, if not lavishly.

People are never so completely and enthusiastically evil as when they act out of religious conviction.

In the search for truth,what you believe matters lessthan how you believe.

As to Science, she has never sought to ally herself to civil power. She has never attempted to throw odium or inflict social ruin on any human being. She has never subjected anyone to mental...

Until every soul is freely permitted to investigate every book, and creed, and dogma for itself, the world cannot be free. Mankind will be enslaved until there is mental grandeur enough to allow each man...

In all things in this life, we are told “It’s okay if you don’t make it the first time!”, “It’s fine if you don’t get it right the first time, just try again and again!”...

Until the human condition could be resolved it was not safe to acknowledge the different roles men and women played in the journey to enlightenment. Over time it was found that the best way to...

Its all about perception, that is how you look at. Your own thoughts and outlook defines whether it is good or bad. And your definition determines your response.

Science has never killed or persecuted a single person for doubting or denying its teaching, and most of these teaching have been true; but religion has murdered millions for doubting or denying her dogmas and...

God seemed to have become a brand, a packaging, and people purchase this trusted brand with such faith and devotion that they no longer care who the vendor is.

Old religious dogma attempts to convince you that you are on a journey to God, then makes you pay tolls along that roadway.

People often mistake their imagination for their heart, & so often are convinced they are converted as soon as they start thinking of becoming converted.

Belief is made up of the same non-substance of which we ourselves are composed. The test of any belief system, then, is the degree to which this same light is permitted to shine through.

Modesty is invisibility…Never forget it. To be seen—to be seen—is to be…penetrated. What you must be girls, is impenetrable.

[Robert’s eulogy at his brother, Ebon C. Ingersoll’s grave. Even the great orator Robert Ingersoll was choked up with tears at the memory of his beloved brother]The record of a generous life runs like a...

gays are promiscuous,” certain races are frigid or hung, and certain sex acts are indulgent, effeminate, or immoral. Other distortions clearly function as tools of organizations or of religious or political figures to shape public...

Intelligent men do not decide any subject until they have carefully examined both or all sides of it. Fools, cowards, and those too lazy to think, accept blindly, without examination, dogmas and doctrines imposed upon...

Never trust the translation or interpretation of something without first trusting its interpreter. One word absent from a sentence can drastically change the true intended meaning of the entire sentence. For instance, if the word...

This century will be called Darwin’s century. He was one of the greatest men who ever touched this globe. He has explained more of the phenomena of life than all of the religious teachers. Write...

Too much faith is the worst ally. When you believe in something literally, through your faith you’ll turn it into something absurd. One who is a genuine adherent, if you like, of some political outlook,...

I remember on one of my many visits with Thomas A. Edison, I brought up the question of Ingersoll. I asked this great genius what he thought of him, and he replied, ‘He was grand.’...

EQUAL RIGHTS and FREE DISCUSSION will be fearlessly advocated and maintained. Sectarian dogmas or tenets will be investigated and compared.

To deny the necessity or value of metaphysics is to assert a metaphysical principle, just as to say a religion must be without dogmas is to assert a dogma.

All children are curious and I wonder by what process this trait becomes developed in some and suppressed in others. I suspect again that schools and colleges help in the suppression insofar as they meet...

Theology is a superstition—Humanity a religion.

That is the idea — that we should all be wicked if we did not hold to the Christian religion. It seems to me that the people who have held to it have been for...

If you do not want to stop the wheels of progress; if you do not want to go back to the Dark Ages; if you do not want to live again under tyranny, then you...

Without the voice of reason, every faith is its own curse.”(History Will Teach Us Nothing)

Einsteinian” relativity or of Planck’s quantum theory in relation to Newton’s discoveries. They take absolutely nothing away from the greatness of the learned Englishman. Thanks to Newton, physics was able to advance until it achieved...

In my experience, the most staunchly held views are based on ignorance or accepted dogma, not carefully considered accumulations of facts. The more you expose the intricacies and realtities of the situation, the less clear-cut...

I am what I might term an unprejudiced sceptic. I am not given to either believing or disbelieving things ‘on principle,’ as I have found many idiots prone to be, and what is more, some...

I believe that many who find that ‘nothing happens’ when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through...

As time goes on, new and remoter aspects of truth are discovered which can seldom be fitted into creeds that are changeless.

Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble.

The theologians dead, knew no more than the theologians now living. More than this cannot be said. About this world little is known,—about another world, nothing.Our fathers were intellectual serfs, and their fathers were slaves....

There are few things more dangerous than inbred religious certainty.

Theology is not a private subject for theologians only. Nor is it a private subject for professors. Fortunately, there have always been pastors who have understood more about theology than most professors. Nor is theology...

The bare knowledge of God’s will is inefficacious, it doth not better the heart. Knowledge alone is like a winter sun, which hath no heat or influence; it doth not warm the affections, or purify...

Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is a contest with mistake, and must keep the conscience alive.