{"author":"Robert G. Ingersoll","author_id":"Robert+G.+Ingersoll","total_quotes":151,"quotes":[{"text":"Upon the shadowy shore of death the sea of trouble casts no wave. Eyes that have been curtained by the everlasting dark, will never know again the burning touch of tears. Lips touched by eternal silence will never speak again the broken words of grief. Hearts of dust do not break. The dead do not weep. Within the tomb no veiled and weeping sorrow sits, and in the rayless gloom is crouched no shuddering fear.I think of those I have loved and lost as having returned to earth, as having become a part of the elemental wealth of the world – I think of them as unconscious dust, I dream of them as gurgling in the streams, floating in the clouds, bursting in the foam of light upon the shores of worlds...","author":"Robert G. Ingersoll","tags":["atheism","death","eternity","nature","peace"],"id":5370,"author_id":"Robert+G.+Ingersoll"},{"text":"Of course the theologians fought the facts found by the geologists, the scientists, and sought to sustain the sacred Scriptures. They mistook the bones of the mastodon for those of human beings, and by them proudly proved that 'there were giants in those days.' They accounted for the fossils by saying that God had made them to try our faith, or that the Devil had imitated the works of the Creator.They answered the geologists by saying that the 'days' in Genesis were long periods of time, and that after all the flood might have been local. They told the astronomers that the sun and moon were not actually, but only apparently, stopped. And that the appearance was produced by the reflection and refraction of light.They excused the slavery and polygamy, the robbery and murder upheld in the Old Testament by saying that the people were so degraded that Jehovah was compelled to pander to their ignorance and prejudice.In every way the clergy sought to evade the facts, to dodge the truth, to preserve the creed.At first they flatly denied the facts -- then they belittled them -- then they harmonized them -- then they denied that they had denied them. Then they changed the meaning of the 'inspired' book to fit the facts. At first they said that if the facts, as claimed, were true, the Bible was false and Christianity itself a superstition. Afterward they said the facts, as claimed, were true and that they established beyond all doubt the inspiration of the Bible and the divine origin of orthodox religion.Anything they could not dodge, they swallowed and anything they could not swallow, they dodged.I gave up the Old Testament on account of its mistakes, its absurdities, its ignorance and its cruelty. I gave up the New because it vouched for the truth of the Old. I gave it up on account of its miracles, its contradictions, because Christ and his disciples believe in the existence of devils -- talked and made bargains with them. Expelled them from people and animals.This, of itself, is enough. We know, if we know anything, that devils do not exist -- that Christ never cast them out, and that if he pretended to, he was either ignorant, dishonest or insane.","author":"Robert G. Ingersoll","tags":["devils","fabrications","lies","reality","science","theologians"],"id":7712,"author_id":"Robert+G.+Ingersoll"},{"text":"Strike, with hand of fire, O weird musician, thy harp strung with Apollo's golden hair; fill the vast cathedral aisles with symphonies sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ keys; blow, bugler, blow, until thy silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit waves, and charm the lovers wandering 'mid the vine-clad hills. But know, your sweetest strains are discords all, compared with childhood's happy laugh—the laugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy. O rippling river of laughter, thou art the blessed boundary line between the beasts and men; and every wayward wave of thine doth drown some fretful fiend of care. O Laughter, rose-lipped daughter of Joy, there are dimples enough in thy cheeks to catch and hold and glorify all the tears of grief.","author":"Robert G. Ingersoll","tags":["apollo","children","harp","joy","laughter","music","poem","poetry"],"id":8080,"author_id":"Robert+G.+Ingersoll"},{"text":"If God created the universe, there was a time when he commenced to create. Back of that commencement there must have been an eternity. In that eternity what was this God doing? He certainly did not think. There was nothing to think about. He did not remember. Nothing had ever happened. What did he do? Can you imagine anything more absurd than an infinite intelligence in infinite nothing wasting an eternity?","author":"Robert G. Ingersoll","tags":["absurdity","action","creation","creationism","eternity","force","genesis","god","imagine","infinite","intelligence","nothing","remember","science","think","universe","yahweh"],"id":8541,"author_id":"Robert+G.+Ingersoll"},{"text":"With soap baptism is a good thing.","author":"Robert G. Ingersoll","tags":["religion"],"id":10496,"author_id":"Robert+G.+Ingersoll"},{"text":"At present, a good many men engaged in scientific pursuits, and who have signally failed in gaining recognition among their fellows, are endeavoring to make reputations among the churches by delivering weak and vapid lectures upon the 'harmony of Genesis and Geology.' Like all hypocrites, these men overstate the case to such a degree, and so turn and pervert facts and words that they succeed only in gaining the applause of other hypocrites like themselves. Among the great scientists they are regarded as generals regard sutlers who trade with both armies.Surely the time must come when the wealth of the world will not be wasted in the propagation of ignorant creeds and miraculous mistakes. The time must come when churches and cathedrals will be dedicated to the use of man; when minister and priest will deem the discoveries of the living of more importance than the errors of the dead; when the truths of Nature will outrank the 'sacred' falsehoods of the past, and when a single fact will outweigh all the miracles of Holy Writ.Who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind?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, patriot, philanthropist and philosopher, become a real and blessed truth.","author":"Robert G. Ingersoll","tags":["applause","blessed","brave","cathedrals","church","churches","civilize","clergyman","creeds","dead","discoveries","elevate","enlighten","errors","fact","facts","failed","falsehoods","generals","genesis","geology","great","harmony","holy-writ","honest","hypocrites","ignorant","lectures","living","mankind","minister","miracles","miraculous","mistakes","money","nature","past","patriot","peers","perfert","philanthropist","philosopher","poet","priest","progress","pursuit","real","recognition","reputation","sacred","school","science","scientific","stlers","superstition","teacher","think","truth","university","use","vapid","waste","weak","wealth"],"id":14144,"author_id":"Robert+G.+Ingersoll"},{"text":"A few years ago the Deists denied the inspiration of the Bible on account of its cruelty. At the same time they worshiped what they were pleased to call the God of Nature. Now we are convinced that Nature is as cruel as the Bible; so that, if the God of Nature did not write the Bible, this God at least has caused earthquakes and pestilence and famine, and this God has allowed millions of his children to destroy one another. So that now we have arrived at the question -- not as to whether the Bible is inspired and not as to whether Jehovah is the real God, but whether there is a God or not.","author":"Robert G. Ingersoll","tags":["atheism","cruelty","deism","disaster","god","jehovah","nature","theism"],"id":15921,"author_id":"Robert+G.+Ingersoll"},{"text":"I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot. Men are not superior by reason of the accidents of race or color. They are superior who have the best heart — the best brain.","author":"Robert G. Ingersoll","tags":["brains","color","reason","rights"],"id":18776,"author_id":"Robert+G.+Ingersoll"},{"text":"Nothing but truth is immortal.","author":"Robert G. Ingersoll","tags":["immortality","truth"],"id":21729,"author_id":"Robert+G.+Ingersoll"},{"text":"With every drop of my blood I hate and execrate every form of tyranny, every form of slavery. I hate dictation. I love liberty.","author":"Robert G. Ingersoll","tags":["execration","hate","liberty","love","slavery","tyranny"],"id":29394,"author_id":"Robert+G.+Ingersoll"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":151,"pages":16,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}