robert-green-ingersoll Quotes About children

“We are all children of the same mother, and the same fate awaits us all. We, too, have our religion, and it is this: Help for the living-Hope for the dead.”

Children Helping Mother Fate

Book:The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

“Instead of loving a God, we love each other. Instead of the religion of the sky-the religion of this world-the religion of the family-the love of husband for wife, of wife for husband-the love of all for children. So that now the real religion is: Let us live for each other; let us live for this world without regard for the past and without fear for the future. Let us use our faculties and our powers for the benefit of ourselves and others, knowing that if there be another world, the same philosophy that gives us joy here will make us happy there.”

Source: Ingersoll: Fifty Great Selections, Lectures, Tributes, After Dinner Speeches and Essays, Carefully Selected from the Twelve Volume Dresden Edition of Colonel Ingersoll's Complete Works

“Every man that tried to destroy the Government, every man that shot at the holy flag in heaven, every man that starved our soldiers... every man that wanted to burn the negro, every one that wanted to scatter yellow fever in the North, every man that opposed human liberty, that regarded the auction-block as an altar and the howling of the bloodhound as the music of the Union, every man who wept over the corpse of slavery, that thought lashes on the naked back were a legal tender for labour performed, every one willing to rob a mother of her child - every solitary one was a Democrat.”

“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 fellow-men, then, and not until then, will the world be civilized.”

Source: The Works of 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.”

Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

“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!”

Kind Children Book School Order Wish Justice Atheism Source Authority Constitution Our Children Filled Positive Atheism Horrible Gentle Passages Unjust

Author:Robert Green Ingersoll

“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?”

Ifs Men Should Children Hands Seems Mother Father Atheism Design Defeat Positive Atheism Criminals Insane Idiot Breasts Thank God Idiotic

Book:The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

“If a man wishes to have God recognized in the constitution of our country, let him read the history of the Inquisition, and let him remember that hundreds of millions of men, women, and children have been sacrificed to placate the wrath, or win the approbation of this god.”

Ifs Men Children Has Beens Country Remember Evil Winning Wish Religious Millions Constitution Our Country Wrath Men Women Inquisition

Book:The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll: Miscellany

Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll: Miscellany

“Environment is a sculptor - a painter. If we had been born in Constantinople, then most of us would have said: 'There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.' If our parents had lived on the banks of the Ganges, we would have been worshipers of Siva, longing for the heaven of Nirvana. As a rule, children love their parents, believe what they teach, and take great pride in saying that the religion of mother is good enough for them.”

“If there be gods we cannot help them, but we can assist our fellow men. We cannot love the inconceivable, but we can love wife and child and friend.”

Ifs Men Children Helping Wife Fellows Fellow Man If There Is A God

Book:Superstition and Other Essays

Source: Superstition and Other Essays

“There is no harmony between religion and science. When science was a child, religion sought to strangle it in the cradle. Now that science has attained its youth, and superstition is in its dotage, the trembling, palsied wreck says to the athlete: "Let us be friends."”

Children Youth Harmony Athlete Superstitions Science And Religion Cradle Wrecks Trembling

Book:The Works of Robert G.Ingersoll. [Dresden Ed.]

Source: The Works of Robert G.Ingersoll. [Dresden Ed.]

“Would God give a bird wings and make it a crime to fly? Would he give me brains and make it a crime to think? Any God that would damn one of his children for the expression of his honest thought wouldn't make a decent thief. When I read a book and don't believe it, I ought to say so. I will do so and take the consequences like a man.”

Source: Lectures of Col. R.G. Ingersoll: Including His Letters on the Chinese God--Is Suicide a Sin?--The Right to One's Life--etc. Etc. Etc

“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.”

Ifs Children Heaven Hell Forever Damn Tyrants Go To Hell If There Is A God Infamous

Book:The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

“The whip degrades; a severe father teaches his children to dissemble; their love is pretense, and their obedience a species of self-defense. Fear is the father of lies.”

Children Self Lying Father Love Is Teach Species Defense Obedience Severe Pretense Whips Self Defense Degrade

Book:Discussions

Source: Discussions

“If upon this earth we ever have a glimpse of heaven,it is when we pass a home in winter, at night,and through the windows, the curtains drawn aside,we see the family about the pleasant hearth; the old lady knitting; the cat playing with the yarn;the children wishing they had as many dolls or dollars or knivesor somethings, as there are sparks going out to join the roaring blast;the father reading and smoking, and the clouds rising like incense from the altar of domestic joy.I never passed such a house without feeling thatI had received a benediction.”

Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

“I have no confidence in any religion that can be demonstrated only to children.”

Children No Confidence

Book:The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

“And why does this same God tell me how to raise my children when he had to drown his?”

Children Doe Raises My Children

Book:The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

“One laugh of a child will make the holiest day more sacred still.”

Children Stills Family Laughing Sacred

Book:The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

“When one of your children tells a lie, be honest with him; tell him that you have told hundreds of them yourself. Tell him it is not the best way; that you have tried it. Tell him as the man did in Maine when his boy left home: "John, honesty is the best policy; I have tried both."”

Men Way Children Home Lying Left Boys Honest Honesty Policy He Man Our Children Best Way Being Honest Your Children Maine Honesty Is The Best Policy

Book:The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

“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 in 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.”

Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

“When your little child tells a lie, do not rush at him as though the world were about to go into bankruptcy. Be honest with him. A tyrant father will have liars for his children; do you know that? A lie is born of tyranny upon the one hand and weakness upon the other, and when you rush at a poor little boy with a club in your hand, of course he lies.”

Source: Ingersoll: Fifty Great Selections, Lectures, Tributes, After Dinner Speeches and Essays, Carefully Selected from the Twelve Volume Dresden Edition of Colonel Ingersoll's Complete Works

“I thank thee, Mother Nature, that thou hast put ingenuity enough in the brain of a child, when attacked by a brutal parent, to throw up a little breastwork in the shape of a lie.”

Children Littles Enough Lying Mother Parent Brain Kindness Shapes Thee Brutal Ingenuity Mother Nature

Book:The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

“The old doctrine that God wanted man to do something for him, and that he kept a watchful eye upon all the children of men; that he rewarded the virtuous and punished the wicked, is gradually fading from the mind. We know that some of the worst men have what the world calls success. We know that some of the best men lie upon the straw of failure. We know that honesty goes hungry, while larceny sits at the banquet. We know that the vicious have every physical comfort, while the virtuous are often clad in rags.”