Robert Green Ingersoll, 1833 - 1899
Brady-Handy Photograph Collection, Library of Congress
Born: 11 August 1833, Dresden, New York
Died: 21 July 1899, Dobbs Ferry-on-Hudson, New York
Ingersoll's mother died a year and a half after he was born, his father was a fierce abolitionist whose sermons so fiery that he frequently had to find new churches. With little formal schooling, Robert served two law apprenticeships to qualify for the bar. He set up a successful practice with his brother at Peoria, Illinois. He raised a cavalry regiment in Illinois and led it with distinction at Shiloh, but was captured by the Confederates and returned home under an oath to not fight for the north again. He was appointed as the first Attorney General of Illinois in 1867, but he never held other office. He was an outspoken agnostic, so though he spoke on behalf of Republican candidates, he was never appointed to any positions when they won. In 1886 Ingersoll defended a prominent freethinker in New Jersey against a charge of blasphemy; although he lost the case (and paid his client's $50 fine himself) he so effectively demolished the basis for blasphemy laws that no major cases have been brought since. Between 1865 and 1899 he made a dozen cross-country speaking tours, filling the largest theaters at a dollar a seat for lectures on Shakespeare, Robert Burns, religion, politics, and the lives of famous patriots and scientists. In fact, he is believed to have been seen and heard by more Americans than any other person before the advent of motion pictures and radio.
Biography from Wikipedia and Council for Secular Humanism
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Robert Green Ingersoll quotes:
Quotes found : 99 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 7) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next
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- A believer is a bird in a cage, a freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing. permalink
Robert Green Ingersoll - A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether it is or is not a fact. A lie will not fit anything except another lie. permalink
Robert Green Ingersoll - A mortgage casts a shadow on the sunniest field. permalink
Robert Green Ingersoll - A mule has neither pride of ancestry nor hope of posterity. permalink
Robert Green Ingersoll - An honest God is the noblest work of man. permalink
Robert Green Ingersoll - Anger blows out the lamp of the mind. In the examination of a great and important question, everyone should be serene, slow-pulsed and calm. permalink
Robert Green Ingersoll - Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind. permalink
Robert Green Ingersoll - Colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed. permalink
Robert Green Ingersoll - Courage without conscience is a wild beast. permalink
Robert Green Ingersoll - Custom meets us at the cradle and leaves us only at the tomb. permalink
Robert Green Ingersoll - Every library is an arsenal. permalink
Robert Green Ingersoll - Every man is dishonest who lives upon the labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne. permalink
Robert Green Ingersoll - Every man who expresses an honest thought is a soldier in the army of intellectual liberty. permalink
Robert Green Ingersoll - Fear is a dagger with which hypocrisy assassinates the soul. permalink
Robert Green Ingersoll - 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. permalink
Robert Green Ingersoll
Quotes found : 99 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 7) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next
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