Atheist Quotes

"If god doesn't like the way I live, Let him tell me, not you." There are none more ignorant and useless, than they that seek answers on their knees, with their eyes closed. Several thousand years ago, a small tribe of ignorant nearsavages wrote various collections of myths, wild tales, lies, and gibberish. Over the centuries, these stories were embroidered, garbled, mutilated, and torn into small pieces that were then repeatedly shuffled. Finally, this material was badly translated into several languages successively. The resultant text, creationists feel, is the best guide to this complex and technical subject. The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next. To the philosophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less dangerous than their virtues. The mind of the fundamentalist is like the pupil of the eye: the more light you pour on it, the more it will contract. Theology: The study of elaborate verbal disguises for nonideas. "Faith is deciding to allow yourself to believe something your intellect would otherwise cause you to reject -- otherwise there's no need for faith." Humanity's first sin was faith; the first virtue was doubt. Any belief worth having must survive doubt. "Organized religion is like organized crime; it preys on peoples' weaknesses, generates huge profits for its operators, and is almost impossible to eradicate." ..........Author Unknown "I am treated as evil by those who feel persecuted because they are not allowed to force me to believe as they do." ..........author unknown

"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned." ..........Author Unknown "Christian Fundamentalism: The doctrine that there is an absolutely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life." ..........Author Unknown "Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; give him a religion, and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish." ..........Author Unknown "When the doors of perception are cleansed, man will see things as they truly are, infinite." ..........William Blake "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." ..........Derek Bok - Harvard President "Confession without repentance is just bragging." ..........Rev. Eugene Bolton "Anyone who engages in the practice of psychotherapy confronts every day the devastation wrought by the teachings of religion." ..........Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D. Imagine the ego of the human race, to consider themselves so grand, as to warrant a creator worthy of praise. ..........Robert Brunswick Jr. For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love

need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us. ..........Charles Bukowski "Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of 10 things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these 10 things he has a special place full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry for ever and ever until the end of time...but he loves you." ..........George Carlin "When a man ceases to believe in god, he does not believe in nothing. He believes in everything." ..........G.K. Chesterson "It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him." ..........Arthur C. Clarke "Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense." ..........Chapman Cohen "I do not believe in god because I do not believe in Mother Goose." ..........Clarence Darrow "Men have never fully used [their] powers to advance the good in life, because they have waited upon some power external to themselves and to nature to do the work they are responsible for doing." ..........John Dewey "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't

go away." ..........Philip K. Dick "I believe the spreading of Catholicism to be the most horrible means of political and social degradation left in the world." ..........Charles Dickens "I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God." ..........Thomas Edison "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." ..........Albert Einstein "If 50 million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing" ..........Anatole France "The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." ..........Ben Franklin Poor Richard's Almanack, 1758 "Christ died for our sins. Dare we make his martyrdom meaningless by not committing them?" ..........Jules Feiffer "Not only is there nothing to be gained by believing an untruth, but there is everything to lose when we sacrifice the indispensable tool of reason on the altar of superstition." ..........Freedom From Religion Foundation "In the long run nothing can withstand reason and experience, and the contradiction religion offers to both is only too palpable."

..........Sigmund Freud "We dance around in a ring and suppose, while the secret sits in the middle and knows." ..........Robert Frost "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect, had intended for us to forgo their use." ..........Galileo Galilei Religion is like an ice cold whiskey on a hot day. ..........Ernest Hemingway "See now, how men lay blame upon us gods for what is after all nothing but their own folly." ..........Homer, The Odyssey "Organized religion: The world's largest pyramid scheme." ..........Bernard Katz "I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end... where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice." ..........Pres. John F. Kennedy "The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance...logic can be happily tossed out the window." ..........Stephen King "Randomness scares people. Religion is a way to explain randomness." ..........Fran Lebowitz "The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church." ..........Ferdinand Magellan "I count religion but a childish toy, And hold there is no sin but ignorance." ..........Christopher Marlowe "It requires only two things to win credit for a miracle: a mountebank and a number of silly women." ..........Marquis de Sade "Religion is the opiate of the masses."

..........Karl Marx "I have my own God, and I think my God finds me incredibly funny. That's why I chose him as my God ... " ..........Dennis Miller "I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education." ..........Wilson Mizner "One would like to believe that people who think of themselves as devout Christians would also behave in a manner that is in according with Christian ethics. But pastorally and existentially, I know that this is not the case, and never has been." ..........John Neuhaus, in San Jose Mercury News The last Christian died on a cross. ..........Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche Faith: not wanting to know what is true. ..........Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche "I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time." ..........Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche "In Christianity neither morality nor religion comes into contact with reality at any point." ..........Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche "Religion has caused more misery to all men in every state of human history than any other single idea." ..........Madelyn Murray O'Hair "No God ever gave any man anything, nor ever answered any prayer at any time -- nor ever will." ..........Madelyn Murray O'Hair "What I don't like about bible thumpers, or any cult for that matter, is the arrogance exhibited with impunity by them as they perform their socially accepted public displays of schizophrenic indulgence with the goal of influencing weak-minded individuals, mostly young impressionable children, to join in activities that brainwash them into thinking a certain way so as to restrict their ability to freely reason, to police their own thoughts and become willing slaves, to not take responsibility for their own actions, and to be unquestioningly subservient to the will of a silent invisible entity whose thoughts and wishes are supposedly passed down through the overly exaggerated, un-provable, inconsistent, babblings of an old book that can only be deciphered correctly by someone who claims to be in direct contact with this entity, and who is undoubtedly either the most schizophrenic, or the most deviant member of the group. I see religion, all religion, as evil, and its

minions as zombies." .......... Steve Pinkston "The only force more devastating than a nuclear holocaust is a group of Christians fresh out of church." ..........Matt P. "Better to be unborn than untaught, for ignorance is the root of all misfortune." ..........Plato "I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other gods you will understand why I dismiss yours." ..........Stephen F. Roberts "We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing, all-powerful God, who creates faulty humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes." ..........Gene Roddenberry "Indifference to religion, due to thought, strengthens character," ..........W.T. Root, Prof. of Psychology at Univ. of Pittsburgh, after examining 1,916 prisoners. "It is an interesting and demonstrable fact, that all children are atheists and were religion not inculcated into their minds, they would remain so." ..........Ernestine Rose "Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth, more than ruin, more even than death...Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man." ..........Bertrand Russell "It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." ..........Carl Sagan "I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking."

..........Carl Sagan --The Demon-Haunted World "The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better, it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look Death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides." ..........Carl Sagan --Billions and Billions "This above all: to thine own self be true." ..........William Shakespeare (Polonius) "The Devil can cite scripture for his purpose." ..........William Shakespeare "All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few." ..........Stendhal "I'm sickened by all religions. Religion has divided people. I don't think there's any difference between the pope wearing a large hat and parading around with a smoking purse and an African painting his face white and praying to a rock." ..........Howard Stern "It's an incredible con job when you think about it, to believe something now in exchange for something after death. Even corporations with their reward systems don't try to make it posthumous." ..........Gloria Steinem "I was getting tired about what the preacher called Christian. Anything he did was Christian, and the people in the church believed it, too. If he stole some book he didn't like from the library, or made the radio station play only part of the day on Sunday, or took somebody off to the state poor home, he called it Christian. I never had much religious training, and I never went to Sunday school because we didn't belong to the church when I was old enough to go, but I thought I knew what believing in Christ meant, and it wasn't half the things the preacher did." ..........John Kennedy Toole -- The Neon Bible "Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith. I consider the capacity for it terrifying." ..........Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. "Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel."

..........Horace Walpole "When it comes to a choice between two evils, I always choose the one I haven't tried before." ..........Mae West "Truth in matters of religion is simply the opinion that has survived." ..........Oscar Wilde "The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame." ..........Oscar Wilde "I was driving alone one day and I saw a hitchhiker with a sign saying Heaven. So I hit him." ..........Steven Wright "Fundamentalists are like the fir trees in German forests: they cannot stand alone, and are only stable when crowded together, branches locked with those of their brothers. That is why we must always fear them, because they will always hate us for our individualism." ..........Brent Yaciw

Bertrand Russell Most quotes from "Why I Am Not A Christian"

I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time toward a past that is dead which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create.

The usual Christian argument is that the suffering in the world is a purification for sin and is therefore a good thing. This argument is, or course, only a rationalization of sadism; but in any case it is a very poor argument. I would invite any Christian to accompany me to the children's ward of a hospital, to watch the suffering that is there being endured, and then to persist in the assertion that those children are so morally abandoned as to deserve what they are suffering. In order to bring himself all feelings of mercy and c compassion. He must, in short, make himself as cruel as the God in whom he believes.

The objections to religion are of two sorts - intellectual and moral. The intellectual objection is that there is no reason to suppose any religion true; the moral objection is that religious precepts date from a time when men were

more cruel than they are and therefore tend to perpetuate inhumanities which the moral conscience of the age would otherwise outgrow.

Moreover, the attitude that one ought to believe such and such a proposition, independently of the question whether there is evidence in its favor, is an attitude which produces hostility to evidence and causes us to close our minds to every fact that does not suit our prejudices.

*****The usual argument of religious people on this subject is roughly as follows: "I and my friends are persons of amazing intelligence and virtue. It is hardly conceivable that so much intelligence and virtue could have come about by chance. There must, therefore, be someone at least as intelligent and virtuous as we are who set the cosmic machinery in motion with a view to producing Us." I am sorry to say that I do not find this argument so impressive as it is found by those who use it.

*****Then again, considered as the climax to such a vast process, we do not really seem to me sufficiently marvelous. Of course, I am aware that many divines are far more marvelous than I am, and that I cannot wholly appreciate merits so far transcending my own. Nevertheless, even after making allowances under this head, I cannot but think that Omnipotence operating through all eternity might have produced something better.

*****It is true that he modern Christian is less robust, but that is not thanks to Christianity; it is thanks to the generations of freethinkers, who, from the Renaissance to the present day, have made Christians ashamed of many of their traditional beliefs.

The gradual emasculation of the Christian doctrine has been effected in spite of the most vigorous resistance, and solely as the result of the onslaughts of free-thinkers.

If we were not afraid of death, I do not believe that the idea of immortality would ever have arisen.

In former days, miracles happened in answer to prayer; they still do in the Catholic Church, but Protestants have lost this power.

In like manner, immortality removes the terror from death. People who believe that when they die they will inherit eternal bliss may be expected to view death without horror, though, fortunately for medical men, this does not invariably happen.

It would be ridiculous to warp the philosophy of nature in order to bring out results that are pleasing to the tiny parasites of this insignificant planet.

Sometimes the Divine commands have been curiously interpreted. For example, we are told not to work on Saturdays, and Protestants take this to mean that we are not to play on Sundays.

*****It is evident that a man with a scientific outlook on life cannot let himself be intimidated by texts of Scripture or by the teaching of the church. He will not be content to say "such -and-such an act is sinful, and that ends the matter." He will inquire whether it does any harm or whether, on the contrary, the belief that it is sinful does harm. And he will find that, especially in what concerns sex, our current morality contains a very great deal of which the origin is surely superstitious. He will find also, that this superstition, like that of the Aztecs, involves needless cruelty and would be swept away if people were actuated by kindly feelings toward their neighbors. But the

defenders of traditional morality are seldom people with warm hearts, as may be seen from the love of militarism displayed by church dignitaries. One is tempted to think that they value morals as affording a legitimate outlet for their desire to inflict pain; the sinner is fair game, and therefore away with tolerance!

In all stages of education the influence of superstition is disastrous. A certain percentage of children have the habit of thinking; one of the aims of education is to cure them of this habit. Inconvenient questions are met with "hush, hush" or punishment.

Clergymen almost necessarily fail in two ways as teachers of morals. They condemn acts which do no harm and they condone acts which do great harm.

The church does not mind hypocrisy, which is a flattering tribute to its power; but elsewhere it has come to be recognized as an evil which we ought not lightly to inflict.

Robert Ingersoll "How charming in these hard and scientific times to see old age in Superstition's lap, with eager lips upon her withered breast!"

"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." .........."Individuality", 1873, in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p. 203

"Ministers say that they teach charity. That is natural. They live on alms. All beggars teach that others should give." .........."The Truth" 1897

"This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves." .........."An Interview on Chief Justice Comegys", Brooklyn Eagle, 1881

"That church Catholic teaches us that we can make God happy by being miserable ourselves..." .........."What Must We Do To Be Saved?" 1880, in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p. 492

"Suppose, however, that God did give this law to the Jews, and did tell them that whenever a man preached a heresy, or proposed to worship any other God that they should kill him; and suppose that afterward this same God took upon himself flesh, and came to this very chosen people and taught a different religion, and that thereupon the Jews crucified him; I ask you, did he not reap exactly what he had sown? What right would this god have to complain of a crucifixion suffered in accordance with his own command?" .........."Some Mistakes of Moses", in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 2, p. 259

"Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy a coffin." .........."Heretics and Heresies", 1874

"In 1776 our fathers endeavored to retire the gods from politics. They declared that "all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." This was a contradiction of the then political ideas of the world; it was, as many believed, an act of pure blasphemy a renunciation of the Deity. ...It was a notice to all churches and priests that thereafter mankind would govern and protect themselves. Politically it tore down every altar and denied the authority of every "sacred book" and appealed from the Providence of God to the Providence of man."

.........."God in the Constitution", originally published in The Arena in Boston in January 1890. Taken from The New Dresden Edition of the Works of Ingersoll New York City: The Ingersoll Publishers, Inc., 1900

"The inspiration of the Bible depends on the credulity of him who reads." .........."The Christian Religion" Sec. III, The IngersollBlack Debate, 1881

"Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense." ..........Second Interview on Rev. Talmadge, 1882, in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 5, p. 49

"God so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn a large majority of the human race." .........."Why I Am An Agnostic", 1876

"We cannot trample upon their rights, without endangering our own; and no man who will take liberty from another, is great enough to enjoy liberty himself." .......... Fifth Interview on Rev. Talmadge, 1882

"...in every religion the priest insists on five things First: There is a God. Second: He has made known his will. Third: He has selected me to explain this message. Fourth: We will now take up a collection; and Fifth: Those who fail to subscribe will certainly be damned." .......... "Has Freethought a Constructive Side?", printed in The Truth Seeker, New York 1890

"Every fact is an enemy of the church. Every fact is a heretic. Every demonstration is an infidel. Everything that ever really happened testifies against the supernatural." .......... "Orthodoxy", 1884

"Religion supports nobody. It has to be supported. It produces no wheat, no corn; it ploughs no land; it fells no forests. It is a perpetual mendicant. It lives on the labors of others, and then has the arrogance to pretend that it supports the giver." .........."A Christmas Sermon" printed in Evening Telegraph, Dec. 19, 1891

"I beg, I implore, I beseech you, never to give another dollar to build a church in which that lie is preached. Never give another cent to send a missionary with his mouth stuffed with that falsehood to a foreign land. Why, they say, the heathen will go to heaven, any way, if you let them alone. What is the use of sending them to hell by enlightening them? Let them alone. The idea of going and telling a man a thing that if he does not believe, he will be damned, when the chances are ten to one that he will not believe it, is monstrous." .......... "Orthodoxy", 1884

"If the book the Bible and my brain are both the work of the same Infinite God, whose fault is it that the book and my brain do not agree?" .........."Some Reasons Why", 1881

"Tell me there is a God in the serene heavens that will damn his children for the expression of an honest belief! More men have died in their sins, judged by your orthodox creeds, than there are leaves on all the forests in the wide world ten thousand times over. Tell me these men are in hell; that these men are in torment; that these children are in eternal pain, and that they are to be punished forever and forever! I denounce this doctrine as the most infamous of lies." ..........Ingersoll, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", 1877

"All the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable, grew, blossomed and bore fruit in this one word, Hell." .........."The Great Infidels", 1881

"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 appeared to his chosen people, delivered them from slavery, feed them by miracles, opened the sea for a path, led them by cloud and fire, and overthrown their pursuers, they still preferred a calf of their own making?" (Exod. 32:18) "...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 the promised land?" (Num. 14:2930) .........."A Few Reasons for Doubting the Inspiration of the Bible"

"It has been contended for many years that the Ten Commandments are the foundations of all ideas of justice and law. ...Nothing can be more stupidly false than such assertions. Thousands of years before Moses was born, the Egyptians had a code of laws. ...far better than the Mosaic." .........."Some Mistakes of Moses"

"One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests." .........."The Great Infidels", 1881 also from Speech, New York City, 1 May 1881

"In all ages hypocrites, called priests, have put crowns upon the heads of thieves, called kings." .........."Individuality", 1873

"For many centuries the sword and cross were allies. Together they attacked the rights of man. They defended each other." .........."Voltaire", 1894, Sec. I

"As long as woman regards the Bible as the charter of her rights, she will be the slave of man. The bible was not written by a woman. Within its leaves there is nothing but humiliation and shame for her." .........."The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", 1877

"You have no right to erect your tollgate upon the highways of thought." .........."The Ghosts", 1877

"The infidels of one age have been the aureoled saints of the next. The destroyers of the old are the creators of the new." .........."The Great Infidels", 1881

"The history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of infidels." .........."The Great Infidels", 1881 also from Speech, New York City, 1 May 1881

"It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions. I believe it was Magellan who said, "The church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in

the Church." On the prow of his ship were disobedience, defiance, scorn, and success." .........."Individuality", 1873, quoted in The Great Quotations

"How touching when the learned and wise crawl back in cribs and ask to hear the rhymes and fables once again! How charming in these hard and scientific times to see old age in Superstition's lap, with eager lips upon her withered breast!" .......... "The Christian Religion" Part III, The Ingersoll Black Debate, 1881

"When a man has been "born again", all the passages of the Old Testament that appear so horrible and so unjust to one in his natural state, become the dearest, the most consoling, and the most beautiful of truths. The real Christian reads the accounts of these ancient battles with the greatest possible satisfaction. To one who really loves his enemies, the groans of men, the shrieks of women, and the cries of babes, make music sweeter than the zephyr's breath." .......... "The Talmadgian Catechism", 1882

"Confronted with the universe, with fields of space sown thick with stars, with all there is of life, the wise man, being asked the origin and destiny of all, replies: "I do not know. These questions are beyond the powers of my mind." The wise man is thoughtful and modest. He clings to facts. Beyond his intellectual horizon he does not pretend to see. He does not mistake hope for evidence or desire for demonstration. He is honest. He neither deceives himself nor others." .........."Foundations of Faith", 1895

"To exempt the church from taxation, is to pay part of the priest's salary." ..........Interview in The Truth Seeker, New York, September 5, 1885. Quoted by Joseph Lewis in "Franklin the Freethinker"

"No human being has imagination enough to conceive of this infinite horror. All that the human race has suffered in war and want, in pestilence and famine, in fire and flood all the pangs and pains of every disease and every death all of this is nothing compared with the agonies to be endured by one lost soul. This is the consolation of the Christian religion. This is the justice of God the mercy of Christ. This frightful dogma, this infinite lie, made me the implacable enemy of Christianity. The truth is that this belief in eternal pain has been the real persecutor. It founded the Inquisition, forged the chains, and furnished the fagots. It has darkened the lives of many millions. It made the cradle as terrible as the coffin. It enslaved nations and shed the blood of countless thousands. It sacrificed the wisest, the bravest and the best. It subverted the idea of justice, drove mercy from the heart, changed men to fiends and banished reason from the brain. Like a venomous serpent it crawls and coils and hisses in every orthodox creed. It makes man an eternal victim and God an eternal fiend. It is the one infinite horror. Every church in which it is taught is a public curse. Every preacher who teaches it is an enemy of mankind. Below this Christian dogma, savagery cannot go. It is the infinite of malice, hatred, and revenge. Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its creator, God.

While I have life, as long as I draw breath, I shall deny with all my strength, and hate with every drop of my blood, this infinite lie."

.........."Why I Am An Agnostic", 1896

"Christianity teaches that all offences can be forgiven. Every church unconsciously allows people to commit crimes on credit. On the other hand, what is called infidelity says: There is no being in the universe who rewards, and there is no being who punishes every act has its consequences. If the act is good, the consequences are good; if the act is bad, the consequences are bad; and these consequences must be borne by the actor. It says to every human being: You must reap what you sow. There is no reward, there is no punishment, but there are consequences, and these consequences are the invisible and implacable police of nature. They cannot be avoided. They cannot be bribed. No power can awe them, and there is not gold enough in the world to make them pause. Even a God cannot induce them to release for one instant their victim. This great truth is, in my judgment, the gospel of morality. If all men knew that they must inevitably bear the consequences of their own actions if they absolutely knew that they could not injure another without injuring themselves, the world, in my judgment, would be far better than it is." .......... January 9, 1891, answering the critics of his "Christmas Sermon" printed in the Evening Telegraph on December 19, 1891

"Can a good man mock at the children of deformity? Will he deride the misshapen? Your Jehovah deformed some of his own children, and then held them up to scorn and hatred. These divine mistakes these blunders of the infinite were not allowed to enter the temple erected in honor of him who had

dishonored them. Does a kind father mock his deformed child? What would you think of a mother who would deride and taunt her misshapen babe?" ..........Response to Wm. E. Gladstone on his letter "Regarding Col. Ingersoll on Christianity; Some Remarks on his Reply to Dr. Field", 1888

"I cannot see why we should expect an infinite God to do better in another world than he does in this." ..........Reply to questions from the Indianapolis clergy, printed in "The Iconoclast", Indianapolis Indiana 1882

"Failure seems to be the trademark of Nature. Why? Nature has no design, no intelligence. Nature produces without purpose, sustains without intention and destroys without thought. Man has a little intelligence, and he should use it. Intelligence is the only lever capable of raising mankind." .........."What Is Religion?", his last public address, delivered before the American Free Religious association, Boston, June 2, 1899

"Our civilization is not Christian. It does not come from the skies. It is not a result of "inspiration." It is the child of invention, of discovery, of applied knowledge that is to say, of science. When man becomes great and grand enough to admit that all have equal rights; when thought is untrammeled; when worship shall consist in doing useful things; when religion means the discharge of obligations to our fellowmen, then, and not until then, will the world be civilized."

..........Reply to questions from the Indiannapolis clergy, printed in "The Iconoclast", Indiannapolis Indiana 1882

"When a professor in a college finds a fact, he should make it known, even if it is inconsistent with something Moses said." .........."Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879

"Science has nothing in common with religion. Facts and miracles never did, and never will agree. They are not in the least related. They are deadly foes. What has religion to do with facts? Nothing. Can there be Methodist mathematics, Catholic astronomy, Presbyterian geology, Baptist biology, or Episcopal botany? Why, then, should a sectarian college exist? Only that which somebody knows should be taught in our schools. We should not collect taxes to pay people for guessing. The common school is the bread of life for the people, and it should not be touched by the withering hand of superstition." .........."Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879

"Why should a woman ask pardon of God for having been a mother? Why should that be considered a crime in Exodus, which is commanded as a duty in Genesis? Why should a mother be declared unclean? Why should giving birth to a daughter be regarded twice as criminal as giving birth to a son? Can we believe that such laws and ceremonies were made and instituted by a merciful and intelligent God? If there is anything in this poor world suggestive of, and standing for, all that is sweet, loving and pure, it is a mother holding in her thrilled and happy arms her prattling babe." .........."Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879

"Only the other day a gentleman was telling me of a case of special providence. He knew it. He had been the subject of it. A few years ago he was about to go on a ship when he was detained. He did not go, and the ship was lost with all on board. "Yes!" I said, "Do you think the people who were drowned believed in special providence?" Think of the infinite egotism of such a doctrine. Here is a man that fails to go upon a ship with five hundred passengers and they go down to the bottom of the sea fathers, mothers, children, and loving husbands and wives waiting upon the shores of expectation. Here is one poor little wretch that did not happen to go! And he thinks that God, the Infinite Being, interfered in his poor little withered behalf and let the rest all go. That is special providence. Why does special providence allow all the crimes? Why are the wifebeaters protected, and why are the wives and children left defenceless if the hand of God is over us all? Who protects the insane? Why does Providence permit insanity? But the church cannot give up special providence. If there is no such thing, then no prayers, no worship, no churches, no priests. What would become of National thanksgiving?" .........."Orthodoxy", 1884

"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?" .........."Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879

"How long, O how long will mankind worship a book? How long will they grovel in the dust before the ignorant legends of the barbaric past? How long, O how long will they pursue phantoms in a darkness deeper than death?" .........."Heretics and Heresies", 1874

"I would not for my life destroy one star of human hope, but I want it so that when a poor woman rocks the cradle and sings a lullaby to the dimpled darling, she will not be compelled to believe that ninetynine chances in a hundred she is raising kindling wood for hell." .........."What Must We Do To Be Saved", 1880

"We did not get our freedom from the church. The great truth, that all men are by nature free, was never told on Sinai's barren crags, nor by the lonely shores of Galilee." .........."The Christian Religion" Part III, The Ingersoll Black Debate, 1881

"Rome was far better when Pagan than when Catholic. It was better to allow gladiators and criminals to fight than to burn honest men. The greatest of the Romans denounced the cruelties of the arena. Seneca condemned the combats even of wild beasts. He was tender enough to say that "we should have a bond of sympathy for all sentient beings, knowing that only the depraved and base take pleasure in the sight of blood and suffering." Aurelius compelled the gladiators to fight with blunted swords. Roman lawyers declared that all men are by nature free and equal. Woman, under Pagan rule in Rome, became as free as man. Zeno, long before the birth of Christ, taught that virtue alone establishes a difference between men. We know that the Civil Law is the foundation of our codes. We know that fragments of Greek and Roman art a few manuscripts saved from Christian destruction, some inventions and discoveries of the Moors were the seeds of modern civilization. Christianity, for a thousand years, taught memory to forget and reason to believe. Not one step was taken in advance. Over the manuscripts of philosophers and poets, priests with their ignorant tongues thrust out, devoutly scrawled the forgeries

of faith. For a thousand years the torch of progress was extinguished in the blood of Christ, and his disciples, moved by ignorant zeal, by insane, cruel creeds, destroyed with flame and sword a hundred million of their fellowmen. They made this world a hell. But if cathedrals had been universities if dungeons of the Inquisition had been laboratories if Christians had believed in character instead of creed if they had taken from the Bible all the good and thrown away the wicked and absurd if domes of temples had been observatories if priests had been philosophers if missionaries had taught the useful arts if astrology had been astronomy if the black art had been chemistry if superstition had been science if religion had been humanity it would have been a heaven filled with love, with liberty and joy." .........."The Christian Religion" Part III, The Ingersoll Black Debate, 1881

"Science is the enemy of fear and credulity. It invites investigation, challenges the reason, stimulates inquiry, and welcomes the unbeliever. It seeks to give food and shelter, and raiment, education and liberty to the human race. It welcomes every fact and every truth. It has furnished a foundation of morals, a philosophy for the guidance of man. From all books it selects the good, and from all theories, the true. It seeks to civilize the human race by the cultivation of the intellect and heart. It refines, through art, music and the drama giving voice and expression to every noble thought. The mysterious does not excite the feeling of worship, but the ambition to understand. It does not pray it works. It does not answer inquiry with the malicious cry of "blasphemy." Its feelings are not hurt by contradiction, neither does it ask to be protected by law from the laughter of heretics. It has taught man that he cannot walk beyond the horizon that the questions of origin and destiny cannot be answered they an infinite personality cannot be comprehended by a finite being, and that the truth of any system of religion based on the supernatural cannot by any possibility be established such a religion not being within the domain of evidence. And, above all, it teaches that all our duties are here that all our obligations are to sentient beings; that intelligence, guided by kindness, is the highest possible wisdom; and that "man believes not what he would, but what he can." ..........Response to Wm. E. Gladstone on his letter "Regarding Col. Ingersoll on Christianity; Some Remarks on his Reply to Dr. Field", 1888

"Who can estimate the misery that has been caused by this most infamous doctrine of eternal punishment? Think of the lives it has blighted of the tears it has caused of the agony it has produced. Think of the millions who have been driven to insanity by this most terrible of dogmas. This doctrine renders God the basest and most cruel being in the universe. Compared with him, the most frightful deities of the most barbarous and degraded tribes are miracles of goodness and mercy. There is nothing more degrading than to worship such a god. Lower than this the soul can never sink. If the doctrine of eternal damnation is true, let me share the fate of the unconverted; let me have my portion in hell, rather than in heaven with a god infamous enough to inflict eternal misery upon any of the sons of men." .........."Heretics and Heresies", 1874

"Religion makes enemies instead of friends. That one word, "religion," covers all the horizon of memory with visions of war, of outrage, of persecution, of tyranny, and death. That one word brings to the mind every instrument with which man has tortured man. In that one word are all the fagots and flames and dungeons of the past, and in that word is the infinite and eternal hell of the future." .........."Some Reasons Why", 1881

"No Devil, no hell. No hell, no atonement. No atonement, no preaching, no gospel." .........."Orthodoxy", 1884

"I beg of you not to pollute the soul of childhood, not to furrow the cheeks of mothers, by preaching a creed that should be shrieked in a madhouse. Do not make the cradle as terrible as the coffin. Preach, I pray you, the gospel of Intellectual Hospitality the liberty of thought and speech. Take from loving hearts the awful fear. Have mercy on your fellowmen. Do not drive to madness the mothers whose tears are falling on the pallid faces of those who died in unbelief. Pity the erring, wayward, suffering, weeping world. Do not proclaim as "tidings of great joy" that an Infinite Spider is weaving webs to catch the souls of men." ..........FieldIngersoll Debate, "A Reply to the Rev. Henry M. Field, D.D., 1887

"The religion of Jesus Christ, as preached by his church, causes war, bloodshed, hatred, and all uncharitableness; and why? Because, they say, a certain belief is necessary to salvation. They do not say, if you behave yourself you will get there; they do not say, if you pay your debts and love your wife and love your children, and are good to your friends, and your neighbors, and your country, you will get there; that will do you no good; you have got to believe a certain thing. No matter how bad you are, you can instantly be forgiven; and no matter how good you are, if you fail to believe that which you cannot understand, the moment you get to the day of judgment nothing is left but to damn you, and all the angels will shout "hallelujah." .........."Orthodoxy", 1884

"Over the wild waves of battle rose and fell the banner of Jesus Christ. For sixteen hundred years the robes of the church were red with innocent blood. The ingenuity of Christians was exhausted in devising punishment severe enough to be inflicted upon other Christians who honestly and sincerely differed with them upon any point whatever." .........."Heretics and Heresies", 1874

"Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers." .........."Address to the Jury", trial of C.B. Reynolds for Blasphemy

"To me, the most obscene word in our language is celibacy." .........."Liberty in Literature", 1890

"Celibacy is the essence of vulgarity." .........."Rome or Reason?", Reply to Cardinal Manning, 1888

"Twenty years after the death of Luther there were more Catholics than when he was born. And twenty years after the death of Voltaire there were millions less than when he was born." ..........Interview with New York correspondent, Chicago Times, May 29, 1881, answering criticism by NY ministers in response to his "Great Infidels" lecture

"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 the name of Charles Darwin on the one hand and the name of every theologian who ever lived on the other, and from that name has come more light to the world than from all of those. His doctrine of evolution, his doctrine of the survival of the fittest, his doctrine of

the origin of species, has removed in every thinking mind the last vestige of orthodox Christianity. He has not only stated, but he has demonstrated, that the inspired writer knew nothing of this world, nothing of the origin of man, nothing of geology, nothing of astronomy, nothing of nature; that the Bible is a book written by ignorance at the instigation of fear. Think of the men who replied to him. Only a few years ago there was no person too ignorant to successfully answer Charles Darwin; and the more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task. He was held up to the ridicule, the scorn and contempt of the Christian world, and yet when he died, England was proud to put his dust with that of her noblest and her grandest. Charles Darwin conquered the intellectual world, and his doctrines are now accepted facts." .........."Orthodoxy", 1884

"When I became convinced that the Universe is natural that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom ... For the first time, I was free ... I stood erect and joyously faced all worlds. And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain ... And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still. .........."Why I Am An Agnostic", 1896, quoted in Joseph Lewis' speech "Ingersoll the Magnificent"

"The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellowmen." .........."The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child" 1877

"For my part I would not kill my wife, even if commanded to do so by the real God of this universe."

.........."Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879

"I would have all the professors in colleges, all the teachers in schools of every kind, including those in Sunday schools, agree that they would teach only what they know, that they would not palm off guesses as demonstrated truths. ..........Speech at Chicago Exposition Building, October 20, 1876

"If there is a God, it is reasonably certain that he made the world, but it is by no means certain that he is the author of the Bible. Why then should we not place greater confidence in Nature than in a book? And even if this God made not only the world but the book besides, it does not follow that the book is the best part of creation, and the only part that we will be eternally punished for denying. It seems to me that it is quite as important to know something of the solar system, something of the physical history of this globe, as it is to know the adventures of Jonah or the diet of Ezekiel. For my part, I would infinitely prefer to know all the results of scientific investigation, than to be inspired as Moses was. Supposing the Bible to be true; why is it any worse or more wicked for Freethinkers to deny it, than for priests to deny the doctrine of evolution, or the dynamic theory of heat? Why should we be damned for laughing at Samson and his foxes, while others, holding the Nebular Hypothesis in utter contempt, go straight to heaven? It seems to me that a belief in the great truths of science are fully as essential to salvation, as the creed of any church. We are taught that a man may be perfectly acceptable to God even if he denies the rotundity of the earth, the Copernican system, the three laws of Kepler, the indestructibility of matter and the attraction of gravitation. And we are also taught that a man may be right upon all these questions, and yet, for failing to believe in the "scheme of salvation," be eternally lost." .........."Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879

"I want no heaven for which I must give my reason; no happiness in exchange for my liberty, and no immortality that demands the surrender of my individuality. Better rot in the windowless tomb, to which there is no door but the red mouth of the pallid worm, than wear the jeweled collar of a god." .........."Individuality", 1873

"Science built the Academy, superstition the inquisition." ..........Robert G. Ingersoll

"I have always noticed that the people who have the smallest souls make the most fuss about getting them saved." ..........Robert G. Ingersoll

"To succeed the theologan invades the cradle. In the minds of innocents they plant the seeds of superstition. Save children from the pollution of this horror." ..........Robert Ingersoll

"Go around the world, and where you find the least superstition, there you will find the best men, the best women, the best children." ..........Robert G. Ingersoll

"Public prayer is, if nothing else, an undignified public performance." ..........quoted in "Ingersoll the Magnificent" by Joseph Lewis

"Christianity has such a contemptible opinion of human nature that it does not believe a man can tell the truth unless frightened by a belief in God. No lower opinion of the human race has ever been expressed." ..........Robert G. Ingersoll

"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." ..........Robert G. Ingersoll

"In the presence of death I affirm and reaffirm the truth of all that I have said against the superstitions of the world. I would say that much on the subject with my last breath." ..........Robert G. Ingersoll

"We have already compared the benefits of theology and science. When the theologian governed the world, it was covered with huts and hovels for the many, palaces and cathedrals for the few. To nearly all the children of men, reading and writing were unknown arts. The poor were clad in rags and skins they devoured crusts, and gnawed bones. The day of Science dawned, and the luxuries of a century ago are the necessities of today. Men in the middle ranks of life have more of the conveniences and elegancies than the princes and kings of the theological times. But above and over all this, is the development of mind. There is more of value in the brain of an average man of today of a mastermechanic, of a chemist, of a naturalist, of an inventor, than there was in the brain of the world four hundred years ago. These blessings did not fall from the skies. These benefits did not drop from the outstretched hands of priests. They were not found in cathedrals or behind altars neither were they searched for with holy candles. They were not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer, nor did they come in answer to superstitious supplication. They are the children of freedom, the gifts of reason, observation and experience and for them all, man is indebted to man."

"Our ignorance is God; what we know is science." .........."The Gods", 1872

"I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men." .........."The Ghosts", 1877

"I believe in the religion of reason the gospel of this world; in the development of the mind, in the accumulation of intellectual wealth, to the end that man may free himself from superstitious fear, to the end that he may take advantage of the forces of nature to feed and clothe the world." .........."Why Am I An Agnostic?", 1896

"To love justice, to long for the right, to love mercy, to pity the suffering, to assist weak, to forget wrongs and remember benefits. to love the truth, to be sincere, to utter honest words, to love liberty, to wage relentless war against slavery in all its forms, to love wife and child and friend, to make a happy home, to love the beautiful in art, in nature, to cultivate the mind, to be familiar with the mighty thoughts that genius has expressed, the noble deeds of all the world, to cultivate courage and cheerfulness, to make others happy, to fill life with the splendor of generous acts, the warmth of loving words, to discard error, to destroy prejudice, to receive new truths with gladness, to cultivate hope, to see the calm beyond the storm, the dawn beyond the night, to do the best that can be done and then to be resigned this is the religion of reason, the creed of science. This satisfies the brain and heart." .........."The Foundations of Faith", 1895, Section VIII, "Conclusion"

"When I became convinced that the Universe is natural that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide worldnot even in infinite space. I was free. free to think, to express my thoughts free to live to my own ideal free to live for myself and those I loved

free to use all my faculties, all my senses free to spread imagination's wings free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope free to judge and determine for myself free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the "inspired" books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past free from popes and priests free from all the "called" and "set apart" free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies free from the fear of eternal pain free from the winged monsters of night free from devils, ghosts, and gods For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of my thought, no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings no chains for my limbs no lashes for my back no fires for my flesh no master's frown or threat no following another's steps no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds. And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain

for the freedom of labor and thought to those who fell on the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons bound with chains to those who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn to those by fire consumed to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still." ..........Robert G. Ingersoll (18331899), "Why Am I An Agnostic?", 1896

"The first great step towards progress, is, for man to cease to be the slave of man; the second, to cease to be the slave of the monsters of his own creation." .........."The Ghosts", 1877

"No man with any sense of humor ever founded a religion." .........."What Must We Do To Be Saved", 1880

"The clergy know that I know that they know that they do not know." .........."Orthodoxy", 1884

"Belief is not a voluntary thing. A man believes or disbelieves in spite of himself. They tell us that to believe is the safe way; but I say, the safe way is to be honest." .........."Some Reasons Why I Am a Freethinker", 1881

"The church never doubts never inquires. To doubt is heresy. To inquire is to admit that you do not know and the church does neither." .........."Thomas Paine", 1870

"A miracle is the badge and brand of fraud. ... No intelligent, honest man ever pretended to perform a miracle, and never will." .........."About the Holy Bible", 1894

"Commerce makes friends, religion makes enemies; the one enriches, and the other impoverishes; the one thrives best where the truth is told, the other where falsehoods are believed." .........."A Wooden God", letter to the Chicago Times, written at Washington, D.C., March 27, 1890

"Intelligence is the only moral guide."

.........."What Would You Substitute For the Bible as a Moral Guide?"

"Ignorance is the soil of the supernatural. The foundation of Christianity has crumbled, has disappeared, and the entire fabric must fall. The natural is true. The miraculous is false." .........."Why Am I An Agnostic?" Part 2, North American Review, March, 1890

"We have at last ascertained that miracles can be perfectly understood; that there is nothing mysterious about them; that they are simply transparent falsehoods." .........."The Divided Household of Faith", 1888

"All the professors in all the religious colleges in this country rolled into one, would not equal Charles Darwin." ..........Fifth Interview on Rev. Talmadge, 1882

"The destroyer of weeds, thistles and thorns is a benefactor whether he soweth grain or not." ..........motto on the title page of "Some Mistakes of Moses", mentioned in Interview with Chicago Times, November 14, 1879

"I have noticed all my life that many people think they have religion when they are troubled with dyspepsia." .........."The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", 1877

"Should it turn out that I am the worst man in the whole world, the story of the flood will remain just as improbable as before, and the contradictions of the Pentateuch will still demand an explanation." .........."Some Mistakes Of Moses", 1879

"To know that the Bible is the literature of a barbarous people, to know that it is uninspired, to be certain that the supernatural does not and cannot exist all this is but the beginning of wisdom." .........."How to Edit a Liberal Paper", Secular Thought, Toronto, January 8, 1887

"Mental slavery is mental death and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul." .........."Individuality", 1873

"Christians tell me that they love their enemies, and yet all I ask is not that they love their enemies, not that they love their friends even, but that they treat those who differ from them, with simple fairness. We do not wish to be

forgiven, but we wish Christians to so act that we will not have to forgive them." .........."Some Mistakes Of Moses", 1879

"There are others who take the ground that all is natural; that there never has been, never will be, never can be any interference from without, for the reason that nature embraces all, and that there can be no without or beyond." .........."Why Am I An Agnostic?", Part II, 1890

"I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the starless night, blown and flared by passion's storm, and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains." ..........Field Ingersoll Debate, "A Reply to the Rev. Henry M. Field, D.D., 1887

"Beyond the truths that have been demonstrated is the horizon of the Probable, and in the world of the Probable every man has the right to guess for himself. Beyond the region of the Probable is the Possible, and beyond the Possible is the Impossible, and beyond the Impossible are the religions of this world. My idea is this: Any man who acts in view of the Improbable or of the Impossible that is to say, of the Supernatural is a superstitious man. Any man who believes that he can add to the happiness of the Infinite, by depriving himself of innocent pleasure, is superstitious. Any man who imagines that he can make some God happy, by making himself miserable, is superstitious. Any one who thinks he can gain happiness in another world, by raising hell with his fellowmen in this, is simply superstitious. Any man who believes in a Being of infinite wisdom and goodness, and yet believes that that being has peopled a world with failures, is superstitious. Any man who

believes that an infinitely wise and good God would take pains to make a man, intending at the time that the man should be eternally damned, is absurdly superstitious. In other words, he who believes that there is, or that there can be, any other religious duty than to increase the happiness of mankind, in this world, now and here, is superstitious." ..........Thirteen Club Dinner, New York, December 13, 1886

"Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows." .........."Superstition", 1898

"The mechanic, when a wheel refuses to turn, never thinks of dropping on his knees and asking the assistance of some divine power. He knows there is a reason. He knows that something is too large or too small; that there is something wrong with his machine; and he goes to work and he makes it larger or smaller, here or there, until the wheel will turn." .........."The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", 1877

"I have no confidence in any religion that can be demonstrated only to children." ..........Political interview

"Honest investigation is utterly impossible within the pale of any church, for the reason, that if you think the church is right you will not investigate, and if you think it wrong, the church will investigate you." .........."Individuality", 1873

"What effect will logic have upon a religious gentleman who firmly believes that a God of infinite compassion sent two bears to tear thirty or forty children in pieces for laughing at a baldheaded prophet?" .........."Voltaire", 1894

"Human love is generous and noble. The love of God is selfish, because man does not love God for God's sake, but for his own." .........."Rome or Reason, A Reply to Cardinal Manning", 1888

"But honest men do not pretend to know; they are candid and sincere; they love the truth; they admit their ignorance, and they say, "We do not know." .........."Superstition", 1898

"In the search for truth, everything in nature seems to hide, man needs the assistance of all his faculties. All the senses should be awake. Humor should carry a torch, Wit should give its sudden light, Candor should hold the scales, Reason, the final arbiter, should put his royal stamp on every fact, and Memory, with a miser's care, should keep and guard the mental gold." ..........Response to Wm. E. Gladstone on his letter "Regarding Col. Ingersoll on Christianity; Some Remarks on his Reply to Dr. Field", 1888

"Some president wishes to be reelected, and thereupon speaks about the Bible as "the cornerstone of American Liberty." This sentence is a mouth large enough to swallow any church, and from that time forward the religious people will be citing that remark of the politician to substantiate the inspiration of the Scriptures." .........."Morality and Immorality" interview, printed in The News, Detroit, Michigan, January 6, 1884

"Only the very ignorant are perfectly satisfied that they know. To the common man the great problems are easy. He has no trouble in accounting for the universe. He can tell you the origin and destiny of man and the why and wherefore of things. As a rule, he is a believer in special providence, and is egotistic enough to suppose that everything that happens in the universe happens in reference to him." .........."Liberty In Literature", 1890

"The agnostic does not simply say, "l do not know." He goes another step, and he says, with great emphasis, that you do not know. He insists that you are trading on the ignorance of others, and on the fear of others. He is not satisfied with saying that you do not know, he demonstrates that you do not know, and he drives you from the field of fact he drives you from the realm of reason he drives you from the light, into the darkness of conjecture into the world of dreams and shadows, and he compels you to say, at last, that your faith has no foundation in fact." ..........unfinished article, reply to Rev. Lyman Abbott's article "Flaws in Ingersollism" printed in the North American Review, April 1890

"I admit that I do not know whether there is any infinite personality or not, because I do not know that my mind is an absolute standard. But according to my mind, there is no such personality; and according to my mind, it is an infinite absurdity to suppose that there is such an infinite personality. But I do know something of human nature; I do know a little of the history of mankind; and I know enough to know that what is known as the Christian faith, is not true. I am perfectly satisfied, beyond all doubt and beyond all peradventure, that all miracles are falsehoods. I know as well as I know that I live that others live that what you call your faith, is not true." ..........unfinished article, reply to Rev. Lyman Abbott's article "Flaws in Ingersollism" printed in the North American Review, April 1890

"In the history of our poor world, no horror has been omitted, no infamy has been left undone by the believers in ghosts, by the worshipers of these fleshless phantoms. And yet these shadows were born of cowardice and malignity. They were painted by the pencil of fear upon the canvas of ignorance by that artist called superstition." .........."The Ghosts", 1877

"Nothing is greater than to break the chains from the bodies of men nothing nobler than to destroy the phantom of the soul." .........."Abraham Lincoln", 1894

"I believe it is, as it always has been, easier to kill two infidels than to answer one." .........."An Interview on Chief Justice Comegys", Brooklyn Eagle, 1881

"Fear paralyzes the brain. Progress is born of courage. Fear believes courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and prays courage stands erect and thinks. Fear retreats courage advances. Fear is barbarism courage is civilization. Fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and in ghosts. Fear is religion courage is science." .........."The Ghosts", 1877

"Through all the years, those who plowed divided with those who prayed. Wicked industry supported pious idleness, the hut gave to the cathedral, and frightened poverty gave even its rags to buy a robe for hypocrisy." .........."What Must We Do To Be Saved?", 1880

"It may be that ministers really think that their prayers do good and it may be that frogs imagine that their croaking brings spring." .........."Which Way?", 1884

"The inventor of a good soup did more for his race than the maker of any creed. The doctrines of total depravity and endless punishment were born of bad cooking and dyspepsia." .........."About Farming in Illinois", 1877

"If there is a God, there should be no slaves." .........."The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", 1877

"It is told that the great Angelo, in decorating a church, painted some angels wearing sandals. A cardinal looking at the picture said to the artist: "Whoever saw angels with sandals?" Angelo answered with another question: "Whoever saw an angel barefooted?" .........."Superstition", 1898

"An infinite personality is an infinite impossibility." .........."Some Reasons Why", 1881

"I do not know what takes place in the invisible world called the brain, inhabited by the invisible something we call the mind. All that takes place there is invisible and soundless. This mind, hidden in this brain, masked by flesh, remains forever unseen, and the only evidence we can possibly have as to what occurs in that world, we obtain from the actions of the man, of the woman. By these actions we judge of the character, of the soul. So I make up my mind as to whether a man is good or bad, not by his theories, but by his actions." ..........Reply to Rev. J.M. King & Rev. Thomas Dixon, printed in the Evening Telegraph, regarding their response to his "Christmas Sermon" in the Evening Telegram, December 19, 1891

"We do believe that it is better to love men than to fear gods; that it is grander and nobler to think and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed. We are satisfied that there can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven. We do not expect to accomplish everything in our day; but we want to do what good we can, and to render all the service possible in the holy cause of human progress. We know that doing away with gods and supernatural persons and powers is not an end. It is a means to an end: the real end being the happiness of man." .........."The Gods", 1872

"We are satisfied that there can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven." .........."The Gods", 1872

"We are continually told that the Bible is the very foundation of modesty and morality; while many of its pages are so immodest and immoral that a minister, for reading them in the pulpit, would be instantly denounced as an unclean wretch. Every woman would leave the church, and if the men stayed, it would be for the purpose of chastising the minister." .........."Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879

"Why should men in the name of religion try to harmonize the contradictions that exist between Nature and a book? Why should philosophers be denounced for placing more reliance upon what they know than upon what they have been told?" .........."Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879

"Is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world who believes in the Garden of Eden story? If you find any man who believes it, strike his forehead and you will hear an echo. Something is for rent." .........."Orthodoxy", 1884

"I read the other day an account of a meeting between John Knox and John Calvin. Imagine a dialogue between a pestilence and a famine! Imagine a conversation between a block and an ax! As I read their conversation it seemed to me as though John Knox and John Calvin were made for each other; that they fitted each other like the upper and lower jaws of a wild beast. They believed happiness was a crime; they looked upon laughter as blasphemy; and they did all they could to destroy every human feeling, and to fill the mind with the infinite gloom of predestination and eternal death. They taught the doctrine that God had a right to damn us because he made us. That is just the reason that he has not a right to damn us. There is some dust. Unconscious dust! What right has God to change that unconscious dust into a human being, when he knows that human being will sin; when he knows that human being will suffer eternal agony? Why not leave him in the unconscious dust? What right has an infinite God to add to the sum of human agony?" .........."What Must We Do To Be Saved", 1880

"I have kindness and candor enough to say that Calvin and Edwards were both insane." .........."Why I Am An Agnostic", 1896

"The churches have no confidence in each other. Why? Because they are acquainted with each other." ..........Sixth Interview on Rev. Talmadge, 1882

"Not one of the learned gentlemen who pretend that the Mosaic laws are filled with justice and intelligence, would live, for a moment, in any country where such laws were in force." .........."Some Mistakes of Moses", 1879

"The church persecutes the living and her God burns, for all eternity, the dead." .........."Heretics and Heresies", 1874

"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. We are asked to stifle every noble sentiment of the soul, and to trample under foot all the sweet charities of the heart. Because we refuse to stultify ourselves refuse to become liars we are denounced, hated, traduced and ostracized here, and this same god threatens to torment us in eternal fire the moment death allows him to fiercely clutch our naked helpless souls. Let the people hate, let the God threaten we will educate them, and we will despise and defy him." .........."The Gods", 1872

"If there is a God who will damn his children forever, I would rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous tyrant. I make my choice now. I despise that doctrine. It has covered the cheeks of this world with tears. It has polluted the hearts of children, and poisoned the imaginations of men. It has been a constant pain, a perpetual terror to every good man and woman and child. It has filled the good with horror and with fear; but it has had no effect upon the infamous and base. It has wrung the hearts of the tender, it has furrowed the cheeks of the good. This doctrine never should be preached again. What right have you, sir, Mr. clergyman, you, minister of the gospel to stand at the portals of the tomb, at the vestibule of eternity, and fill the future with horror and with fear? I do not believe this doctrine, neither do you. If you did, you could not sleep one moment. Any man who believes it, and has within his breast a decent, throbbing heart, will go insane. A man who believes that doctrine and does not go insane has the heart of a snake and the conscience of a hyena." .........."The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", 1877

"A devout clergyman sought every opportunity to impress upon the mind of his son the fact, that god takes care of all his creatures. Happening, one day, to see a crane wading in quest of food, the good man pointed out to his son the perfect adaptation of the crane to get his living in that manner. "See," said he, "how his legs are formed for wading! What a long slender bill he has! Observe how nicely he folds his feet when putting them in or drawing them out of the water! He does not cause the slightest ripple. He is thus enabled to approach the fish without giving them any notice of his arrival." "My son," said he, "it is impossible to look at that bird without recognizing the design, as well as the goodness of God, in thus providing the means of subsistence." "Yes," replied the boy, "I think I see the goodness of God, at least so far as the crane is concerned; but after all, father, don't you think the arrangement a little tough on the fish?" .........."The Gods", 1872

"On every hand there seems to be design to defeat design. If God created man if he is the father of us all, why did he make the criminals, the insane, the deformed and idiotic? Should the mother, who clasps to her breast an idiot child, thank God?" .........."Why I Am An Agnostic", 1896

"I am told that I am in danger of hell; that for me to express my honest convictions is to excite the wrath of God. They inform me that unless I believe in a certain way, meaning their way, I am in danger of everlasting fire. There was a time when these threats whitened the faces of men with fear. That time has substantially passed away. For a hundred years hell has been gradually growing cool, the flames have been slowly dying out, the brimstone is nearly exhausted, the fires have been burning lower and lower, and the climate gradually changing. To such an extent has the change already been effected that if I were going there tonight I would take an overcoat and a box of matches. They say that the eternal future of man depends upon his belief. I deny it. A conclusion honestly arrived at by the brain cannot possibly be a crime; and the man who says it is, does not think so. The god who punishes it as a crime is simply an infamous tyrant. As for me, I would a thousand times rather go to perdition and suffer its torments with the brave, grand thinkers of the world, than go to heaven and keep the company of a god who would damn his children for an honest belief." .........."My Reviewers Reviews", lecture in San Francisco, June 27, 1877, reply to attacks by clergymen for his lectures "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", and "The Ghosts"

"Is it a small thing to quench the flames of hell with the holy tears of pity to unbind the martyr from the stake break all the chains put out the fires of civil war stay the sword of the fanatic, and tear the bloody hands of the Church from the white throat of Science? Is it a small thing to make men truly free to destroy the dogmas of ignorance, prejudice and power the poisoned fables of superstition, and drive from the beautiful face of the earth the fiend of fear?"

.........."Thomas Paine", 1870

"Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god market was fairly glutted, and heaven crammed with these phantoms." .........."The Gods", 1872

"When the people failed to worship one of these gods, or failed to feed and clothe his priests, (which was much the same thing,) he generally visited them with pestilence and famine. Sometimes he allowed some other nation to drag them into slavery to sell their wives and children; but generally he glutted his vengeance by murdering their firstborn. The priests always did their whole duty, not only in predicting these calamities, but in proving, when they did happen, that they were brought upon the people because they had not given quite enough to them." .........."The Gods", 1872

"We are asked to justify these frightful passages, these infamous laws of war, because the Bible is the word of God. As a matter of fact, there never was, and there never can be, an argument even tending to prove the inspiration of any book whatever. In the absence of positive evidence, analogy and experience, argument is simply impossible, and at the very best, can amount only to a useless agitation of the air. The instant we admit that a book is too sacred to be doubted, or even reasoned about, we are mental serfs. It is infinitely absurd to suppose that a god would Address a communication to intelligent beings, and yet make it a crime, to be punished in eternal flames, for them to use their intelligence for the purpose of understanding his communication. 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." .........."The Gods", 1872

"The book, called the Bible, is filled with passages equally horrible, unjust and atrocious. This is the book to be read in schools in order to make our children loving, kind and gentle! This is the book they wish to be recognized in our Constitution as the source of all authority and justice!" .........."The Gods", 1872

"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. We are asked to stifle every noble sentiment of the soul, and to trample under foot all the sweet charities of the heart. Because we refuse to stultify ourselves refuse to become liars we are denounced, hated, traduced and ostracized here, and this same god threatens to torment us in eternal fire the moment death allows him to fiercely clutch our naked helpless souls. Let the people hate, let the god threaten we will educate them, and we will despise and defy the god." .........."The Gods", 1872

"The doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous. It is the infamy of infamies. 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 only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called "faith." What man, who ever thinks, can believe that blood can appease God? And yet, our entire system of religion is based upon that believe. The Jews pacified Jehovah with

the blood of animals, and according to the Christian system, the blood of Jesus softened the heart of God a little, and rendered possible the salvation of a fortunate few. It is hard to conceive how the human mind can give assent to such terrible ideas, or how any sane man can read the Bible and still believe in the doctrine of inspiration." .........."The Gods", 1872

"Whether the Bible is true or false, is of no consequence in comparison with the mental freedom of the race." .........."The Gods", 1872

"Salvation through slavery is worthless. Salvation from slavery is inestimable." .........."The Gods", 1872

"As long as man believes the Bible to be infallible, that book is his master. The civilization of this century is not the child of faith, but of unbelief the result of free thought." .........."The Gods", 1872

"All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable person that the Bible is simply and purely of human invention of barbarian invention is to read it. 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 the throne of your brain the coiled form of superstition then read the Holy Bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom, goodness and purity, to be the author of such ignorance and of such atrocity." .........."The Gods", 1872

"The account shows, however, that the gods dreaded education and knowledge then just as they do now. The church still faithfully guards the dangerous tree of knowledge, and has exerted in all ages her utmost power to keep mankind from eating the fruit thereof. The priests have never ceased repeating the old falsehood and the old threat: "Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." From every pulpit comes the same cry, born of the same fear: "Lest they eat and become as gods, knowing good and evil." For this reason, religion hates science, faith detests reason, theology is the sworn enemy of philosophy, and the church with its flaming sword still guards the hated tree, and like its supposed founder, curses to the lowest depths the brave thinkers who eat and become as gods." .........."The Gods", 1872

"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." .........."The Gods", 1872

"If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word

liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization." .........."The Gods", 1872

"Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith! Banish me from Eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge!" .........."The Gods", 1872

"There is but one way to demonstrate the existence of a power independent of and superior to nature, and that is by breaking, if only for one moment, the continuity of cause and effect. Pluck from the endless chain of existence one little link; stop for one instant the grand procession and you have shown beyond all contradiction that nature has a master. Change the fact, just for one second, that matter attracts matter, and a god appears. The rudest savage has always known this fact, and for that reason always demanded the evidence of miracle. The founder of a religion must be able to turn water into wine cure with a word the blind and lame, and raise with a simple touch the dead to life. It was necessary for him to demonstrate to the satisfaction of his barbarian disciple, that he was superior to nature. In times of ignorance this was easy to do. The credulity of the savage was almost boundless. To him the marvelous was the beautiful, the mysterious was the sublime. Consequently, every religion has for its foundation a miracle that is to say, a violation of nature that is to say, a falsehood. No one, in the world's whole history, ever attempted to substantiate a truth by a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of miracle. Nothing but falsehood ever attested itself by signs and wonders. No miracle ever was performed, and no sane man ever thought he had performed one, and until one is performed, there can be no evidence of the existence of any power superior to, and independent of nature.

The church wishes us to believe. Let the church, or one of its intellectual saints, perform a miracle, and we will believe. We are told that nature has a superior. Let this superior, for one single instant, control nature, and we will admit the truth of your assertions." .........."The Gods", 1872

"In the olden times the church, by violating the order of nature, proved the existence of her God. At that time miracles were performed with the most astonishing ease. They became so common that the church ordered her priests to desist. And now this same church the people having found some little sense admits, not only, that she cannot perform a miracle but insists that the absence of miracle, the steady, unbroken march of cause and effect, proves the existence of a power superior to nature. The fact is, however, that the indissoluble chain of cause and effect proves exactly the contrary." .........."The Gods", 1872

"If we admit that some infinite being has controlled the destinies of persons and peoples, history becomes a most cruel and bloody farce. 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 oppressed." .........."The Gods", 1872

"Man should cease to expect aid from on high. By this time he should know that heaven has no ear to hear, and no hand to help. The present is the necessary child of all the past. There has been no chance, and there can be no interference."

.........."The Gods", 1872

"If abuses are destroyed, man must destroy them. If slaves are freed, man must free them. If new truths are discovered, man must discover them. If the naked are clothed; if the hungry are fed; if justice is done; if labor is rewarded; if superstition is driven from the mind; if the defenseless are protected and if the right finally triumphs, all must be the work of man. The grand victories of the future must be won by man, and by man alone." .........."The Gods", 1872

"Man must learn to rely upon himself. Reading bibles will not protect him from the blasts of winter, but houses, fires and clothing will. 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." .........."The Gods", 1872

"The thoughts of man, in order to be of any real worth, must be free. Under the influence of fear the brain is paralyzed, and instead of bravely solving a problem for itself, tremblingly adopts the solution of another. As long as a majority of men will cringe to the very earth before some petty prince or king, what must be the infinite abjectness of their little souls in the presence of their supposed creator and God? Under such circumstances, what can their thoughts be worth?" .........."The Gods", 1872

"The originality of repetition, and the mental vigor of acquiescence, are all that we have any right to expect from the Christian world. As long as every question is answered by the word "God," scientific inquiry is simply impossible. As fast as phenomena are satisfactorily explained the domain of the power, supposed to be superior to nature must decrease, while the horizon of the known must as constantly continue to enlarge." .........."The Gods", 1872

"According to the theologians, God prepared this globe expressly for the habitation of his loved children, and yet he filled the forests with ferocious beasts; placed serpents in every path; stuffed the world with earthquakes, and adorned its surface with mountains of flame. Notwithstanding all this, we are told that the world is perfect; that it was created by a perfect being, and is therefore necessarily perfect. The next moment, these same persons will tell us that the world was cursed; covered with brambles, thistles and thorns, and that man was doomed to disease and death, simply because our poor, dear mother ate an apple contrary to the command of an arbitrary God." .........."The Gods", 1872

"A very pious friend of mine, having heard that I had said the world was full of imperfections, asked me if the report was true. Upon being informed that it was, he expressed great surprise that any one could be guilty of such presumption. He said that, in his judgement, it was impossible to point out an imperfection "Be kind enough," said he, "to name even one improvement that you could make, if you had the power." "Well," said I, "I would make good health catching, instead of disease." The truth is, it is impossible to harmonize all the ills, and pains, and agonies of this world with the idea that we were created by, and are watched over and protected by an infinitely wise, powerful and beneficent God, who is superior to and independent of nature." .........."The Gods", 1872

"The civilization of man has increased just to the same extent that religious power has decreased. The intellectual advancement of man depends upon how often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth. The church never enabled a human being to make even one of these exchanges; on the contrary, all her power has been used to prevent them. In spite, however, of the church, man found that some of his religious conceptions were wrong. By reading his Bible, he found that the ideas of his God were more cruel and brutal than those of the most depraved savage. He also discovered that this holy book was filled with ignorance, and that it must have been written by persons wholly unacquainted with the nature of the phenomena by which we are surrounded; and now and then, some man had the goodness and courage to speak his honest thoughts. In every age some thinker, some doubter, some investigator, some hater of hypocrisy, some despiser of sham, some brave lover of the right, has gladly, proudly and heroically braved the ignorant fury of superstition for the sake of man and truth. These divine men were generally torn in pieces by the worshipers of the gods. Socrates was poisoned because he lacked reverence for some of the deities. Christ was crucified by a religious rabble for the crime of blasphemy. Nothing is more gratifying to a religionist than to destroy his enemies at the command of God. Religious persecution springs from a due admixture of love towards God and hatred towards man." .........."The Gods", 1872

"The terrible religious wars that inundated the world with blood tended at least to bring all religion into disgrace and hatred. Thoughtful people began to question the divine origin of a religion that made its believers hold the rights of others in absolute contempt. A few began to compare Christianity with the religions of heathen people, and were forced to admit that the difference was hardly worth dying for. They also found that other nations were even happier and more prosperous than their own. They began to suspect that their religion, after all, was not of much real value." .........."The Gods", 1872

"For ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men and women of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great ignorant religious mass on the other. This is the war between Science and Faith. The few have appealed to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to the known, and to happiness here in this world. The many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery hereafter. The few have said, "Think!" The many have said, "Believe!" .........."The Gods", 1872

"While utterly discarding all creeds, and denying the truth of all religions, there is neither in my heart nor upon my lips a sneer for the hopeful, loving and tender souls who believe that from all this discord will result a perfect harmony; that every evil will in some mysterious way become a good, and that above and over all there is a being who, in some way, will reclaim and glorify every one of the children of men; but for those who heartlessly try to prove that salvation is almost impossible; that damnation is almost certain; that the highway of the universe leads to hell; who fill life with fear and death with horror; who curse the cradle and mock the tomb, it is impossible to entertain other than feelings of pity, contempt and scorn." .........."The Gods", 1872

"Reason, Observation and Experience the Holy Trinity of Science have taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so. This is enough for us. In this belief we are content to live and die. If by any possibility the existence of a power superior to, and independent of, nature shall be demonstrated, there will then be time enough to kneel. Until then, let us stand erect." .........."The Gods", 1872

"Whoever imagines himself a favorite with God holds others in contempt." .........."Some Reasons Why", 1881

"Whenever a man believes that he has the exact truth from God, there is in that man no spirit of compromise. He has not the modesty born of the imperfections of human nature; he has the arrogance of theological certainty and the tyranny born of ignorant assurance. Believing himself to be the slave of God, he imitates his master, and of all tyrants, the worst is a slave in power." .........."Some Reasons Why", 1881

"When a man really believes that it is necessary to do a certain thing to be happy forever, or that a certain belief is necessary to ensure eternal joy, there is in that man no spirit of concession. He divides the whole world into saints and sinners, into believers and unbelievers, into God's sheep and Devil's goats, into people who will be glorified and people who are damned." .........."Some Reasons Why", 1881

"... I want it so that every minister will be not a parrot, not an owl sitting upon a dead limb of the tree of knowledge and hooting the hoots that have been hooted for eighteen hundred years. But I want it so that each one can be an investigator, a thinker; and I want to make his congregation grand enough so that they will not only allow him to think, but will demand that he shall think, and give to them the honest truth of his thought."

.........."Some Mistakes of Moses"

"There are some truths, however, that we should never forget: Superstition has always been the relentless enemy of science; faith has been a hater of demonstration; hypocrisy has been sincere only in its dread of truth, and all religions are inconsistent with mental freedom." .........."Humboldt", 1869

"I would rather live with the woman I love in a world full of trouble, than to live in heaven with nobody but men." .........."The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child", 1877

"A believer is a bird in a cage, a freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing." .........."Individuality", 1873

"If all the historic books of the Bible were blotted from the memory of mankind, nothing of value would be lost...I do not see how it is possible for an intelligent human being to conclude that the Song of Solomon is the work of God, and that the tragedy of Lear was the work of an uninspired man." .........."Why Am I An Agnostic?", 1889

"We are not endeavoring to chain the future but to free the present. ...We are the advocates of inquiry, investigation, and thought. ...It is grander to think and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed. ... I look for the day when *reason*, throned upon the world's brains, shall be the King of Kings and the God of Gods." .........."The Gods" 1872

"I honestly believe that the doctrine of hell was born in the glittering eyes of snakes that run in frightful coils watching for their prey. I believe it was born with the yelping, howling, growling and snarling of wild beasts... I despise it with every drop of my blood." .........."The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child" 1877

"To hate man and worship god seems to be the sum of all the creeds." .........."Some Mistakes of Moses" 1879

"..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 Gods" 1872

"I have little confidence in any enterprise or business or investment that promises dividends only after the death of the stockholders." .........."A Wooden God" letter to the Chicago Times, March 27, 1890

"The hands that help are better far than the lips that pray." .........."The Devil" 1899

"Orthodoxy cannot afford to put out the fires of hell." .........."Orthodoxy" 1884

"By the efforts of these infidels, the name of God was left out of the Constitution of the United States. They knew that if an infinite being was put in, no room would be left for the people." They knew that if any church was made the mistress of the state, that mistress, like all others, would corrupt, weaken, and destroy." .........."The Great Infidels" 1881, in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 3, p. 382

"Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment." .........."Individuality" 1873

"If priests had not been fond of mutton, lambs never would have been sacrified to god. Nothing was ever carried to the temple that the priest could not use, and it always happened that god wanted what his agents liked." .........."A Christmas Sermon" printed in Evening Telegraph, Dec. 19, 1891

"It cannot be too often repeated, that truth scorns the assistance of miracle." .........."The Christian Religion" Sec. III, The IngersollBlack Debate, 1881

"We are told in the Pentateuch, that god, the father of us all, gave thousands of maidens, after having killed their fathers, their mothers, and their brothers, to satisfy the brutal lusts of savage men. If there be a god, I pray him to write in his book, opposite my name, that I denied this lie for him." .........."A Few Reasons for Doubting the Inspiration of the Bible"

"If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane." ..........Third Interview on Rev. Talmadge, 1882

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

.........."The Gods" 1872

"We are not accountable for the sins of "Adam" .........."Myth and Miracle" 1885

"If Christ, in fact, said "I came not to bring peace but a sword," it is the only prophecy in the New Testament that has been literally fulfilled." .........."Some Reasons Why" 1881

"We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible and the works of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and your reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing. We want one fact. We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact. We pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact. We know all about your mouldy wonders and your stale miracles. We want a 'this year's fact'. We ask only one. Give us one fact for charity. Your miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have been dead for nearly two thousand years. Their reputation for 'truth and veracity' in the neighborhood where they resided is wholly unknown to us. Give us a new miracle, and substantiate it by witnesses who still have the cheerful habit of living this world. Do not send us to Jericho to hear the winding horns, nor put us in the fire with Shadrach, Meshech and Abednego. Do not compel us to navigate the sea with Captain Jonah, nor dine with Mr. Ezekiel. There is no sort of use in sending us foxhunting with Samson. We have positively lost all interest in that little speech so eloquently delivered by Balaam's inspired donkey. It is worse than useless to show us fishes with money in their mouths, and call our attention to vast multitudes stuffing themselves with five crackers and two

sardines. We demand a new miracle, and we demand it now. Let the church furnish at least one, or forever hold her peace." .........."The Gods" 1872

"The real oppressor, enslaver, and corrupter of the people is the Bible." ..........Some Mistakes of Moses, Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 2 p. 43

"Theology is not what we know about God, but what we do not know about Nature. In order to increase our respect for the Bible, it became necessary for the priests to exalt and extol that book, and at the same time to decry and belittle the reasoning powers of man. The whole power of the pulpit has been used for hundreds of years to destroy the confidence of man in himself to induce him to distrust his own powers of thought, to believe that he was wholly unable to decide any question for himself, and that all human virtue consists in faith and obedience. The church has said 'Believe and obey!' If you reason you will become an unbeliever, and unbelievers will be lost. If you disobey, you will do so through vain pride and curiosity, and will, like Adam and Eve, be thrust from Paradise forver! For my part, I care nothing for what the church says, except in so far as it accords with my reason; and the Bible is nothing to me, only in so far as it agrees with what I think or know." ..........Some Mistakes of Moses, Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 2 p. 53

"Calvin founded a little theocracy, modeled after the Old Testament, and succeeded in erecting the most detestable government that ever existed, except the one from which it was copied." .........."Heretics and Heresies" Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p. 226

"..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..." .........."What Must We Do To Be Saved?" 1880, in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p. 497

"Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains." .........."The Ghosts", 1877, in Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 1, p. 285

"Each nation has created a god, and the god has always resembled his creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved, and he was invariably found on the side of those in power. Each god was intensely patriotic, and detested all nations but his own. All these gods demanded praise, flattery, and worship. Most of them were pleased with sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine perfume. All these gods have insisted upon having a vast number of priests, and the priests have always insisted upon being supported by the people, and the principal business of these priests has been to boast about their god, and to insist that he could easily vanquish all the other gods put together." .........."The Gods", 1872

"Most of these gods were revengeful, savage, lustful, and ignorant. As they generally depended upon their priests for information, their ignorance can hardly excite our astonishment." .........."The Gods", 1872

"These gods did not even know the shape of the worlds they had created, but supposed them perfectly flat. Some thought the day could be lengthened by stopping the sun, that the blowing of horns could throw down the walls of a city, and all knew so little of the real nature of the people they had created, that they commanded the people to love them. Some were so ignorant as to suppose that man could believe just as he might desire, or as they might command, and that to be governed by observation, reason, and experience was a most foul and damning sin. None of these gods could give a true account of the creation of this little earth. All were woefully deficient in geology and astronomy. As a rule, they were most miserable legislators, and as executives, they were far inferior to the average of American presidents." .........."The Gods", 1872

"These deities have demanded the most abject and degrading obedience. In order to please them, man must lay his very face in the dust. Of course, they have always been partial to the people who created them, and have generally shown their partiality by assisting those people to rob and destroy others, and to ravish their wives and daughters." .........."The Gods", 1872

"Nothing is so pleasing to these gods as the butchery of unbelievers. Nothing so enrages them, even now, as to have someone deny their existence."

.........."The Gods", 1872