Robert Green Ingersoll Quotes About Progress
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The history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of infidels.
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If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization.
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Every church pretends to have found the exact truth. This is the end of progress. Why pursue that which you have? Why investigate when you know? Every creed is a rock in running water: humanity sweeps by it. Every creed cries to the universe, "Halt!" A creed is the ignorant Past bullying the enlightened Present. The ignorant are not satisfied with what can be demonstrated. Science is too slow for them, and so they invent creeds. They demand completeness. A sublime segment, a grand fragment, are of no value to them. They demand the complete circle... the entire structure.
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Progress is born of doubt and inquiry. The Church never doubts, never inquires. To doubt is heresy, to inquire is to admit that you do not know—the Church does neither.
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The few have said, Think! The many have said, Believe! The first doubt was the womb and cradle of progress, and from the first doubt, man has continued to advance.
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Liberty is the condition of progress. Without Liberty, there remains only barbarism. Without Liberty, there can be no civilization.
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There may or may not be a Supreme Ruler of the universe-but we are certain that man exists, and we believe that freedom is the condition of progress; that it is the sunshine of the mental and moral world, and that without it man will go back to the den of savagery, and wll become the fit associate of wild and ferocious beasts.
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Who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind?
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Superstition is, always has been, and forever will be, the foe of progress, the enemy of education and the assassin of freedom.
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Liberty is the breath of progress.
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All religious systems enslave the mind. Certain things are demanded-certain things must be believed-certain things must be done-and the man who becomes the subject or servant of this superstition must give up all idea of indivuality or hope of intellectual growth or progress.
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