671 Quotes by Robert Green Ingersoll

Neutrality is generally used as a mask to hide unusual bitterness. Sometimes it hides what it is - nothing. It always stands for hollowness of head or bitterness of heart, sometimes for both.

A mortgage casts a shadow on the sunniest field.

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?

To avoid pain we must know the conditions of health. For the accomplishment of this end we must rely upon investigation instead of faith, upon labor in place of prayer. Most misery is produced by ignorance. Passions sow the seeds of pain.

The idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear, beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. It is the rainbow -- Hope shining upon the tears of grief.

In France, the people were the sport of a king's caprice. Everywhere was the shadow of the Bastille. It fell upon the sunniest field, upon the happiest home.

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.

Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.

Either god should have written a book to fit my brain, or he should have made my brain to fit his book.