Is it necessary that Heaven should borrow its light from the glare of Hell? Infinite punishment is infinite cruelty, endless injustice, immortal mean… - Robert Green Ingersoll
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Is it necessary that Heaven should borrow its light from the glare of Hell? Infinite punishment is infinite cruelty, endless injustice, immortal meanness. To worship an eternal gaoler hardens, debases, and pollutes even the vilest soul. While there is one sad and breaking heart in the universe, no good being can be perfectly happy.
Robert Green Ingersoll (August 11, 1833 – July 21, 1899) was a lawyer, a Civil War veteran, political leader, and orator of the United States during the Golden Age of Freethought, noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of agnosticism. He was nicknamed "The Great Agnostic".
Biography information from
Wikiquote·
Portrait adapted from
Wikimedia Commons, Mathew Benjamin Brady / Levin Corbin Handy (Public domain / CC0)
Also Known As
Alternative Names:
Robert Ingersoll
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The Great Agnostic
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Robert G. Ingersoll
Portrait from Wikimedia Commons. Credit: Mathew Benjamin Brady / Levin Corbin Handy. Used under Public domain / CC0. Processed and styled by Quotewise.
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The infidels have been the brave and thoughtful men; the flower of all the world; the pioneers and heralds of the blessed day of liberty and love; the generous spirits of the unworthy past; the seers and prophets of our race; the great chivalric souls, proud victors on the battlefields of thought, the creditors of all the years to be.
The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenseless. He stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.
In the pulpit, hypocrites have been worshiped; upon the stage they have been held up to derision and execration.
