If the money is raised by taxation, then the burden will fall where it ought to fall, . . . and the rich and stingy will no longer be able to evade the duties of citizenship and of humanity.
Robert Green IngersollIf there be an infinite Being, he does not need our help - we need not waste our energies in his defense.
Robert Green IngersollCrimes were committed to punish crimes, and crimes were committed to prevent crimes. The world has been filled with prisons and dungeons, with chains and whips, with crosses and gibbets, with thumbscrews and racks, with hangmen and heads-men — and yet these frightful means and instrumentalities have committed far more crimes than they have prevented.... Ignorance, filth, and poverty are the missionaries of crime. As long as dishonorable success outranks honest effort — as long as society bows and cringes before the great thieves, there will be little ones enough to fill the jails.
Robert Green IngersollThe old lady who said there must be a devil, else how could they make pictures that looked exactly like him, reasoned like a trained theologian - like a doctor of divinity.
Robert Green IngersollThe 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.
Robert Green Ingersoll