Robert G. Ingersoll Quotes

The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.

I'm against ignorance.

Knowledge goes hand-in-hand with truth - something I learned with a bit of tough love from my Jesuit education first at Regis High School in New York City and then at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Mass.

Believe me, the intellectual revolution is going on, and that has to come first before you see the political changes. That's where I'm very optimistic.

Ultimately, education in its real sense is the pursuit of truth. It is an endless journey through knowledge and enlightenment.

The more rapidly truth is spread among mankind the better it will be for them. Only let us be sure that it is the truth.

The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth.

There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see.

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

Only the educated are free.

Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.

Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.

The most important part of teaching is to teach what it is to know.

The very first instrument for the improvement of the condition of men is knowledge.

In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.

Science has liberated the ideas of those that read and reflect ... Science is progressive.

Learning is an unwelcome guest to the Devil, and therefore he would fain starve it out …. If ever there be any Considerable Blow given to the Devil's Kingdom, it must be, by Youth Excellently Educated.

Faith is a poison that paralyzes the mind. In all the days of your life, seek knowledge!

What, then, can we in England do for Religion ? All that in us lies to secure a form of Christianity in harmony with progress, liberty, and knowledge. How can this be obtained? By making the Church of England a church of intellectual freedom and a church of the people. What men cry, can this church of an Episcopal sect, this last obstinate remnant of a dead social system, this institution of feudalism and fierce obstruction, this church of dominant classes, dark with memories of persecution and intolerance; can such a church as this become a church of freedom and a church of the people. Yes, it can. It is for the people to decide

Freedom to learn is the first necessity of guaranteeing that man himself shall be self-reliant enough to be free.… when the clock of civilization can be turned back by burning libraries, by exiling scientists, artists, musicians, writers and teachers; by disbursing universities, and by censoring news and literature and art; an added burden, an added burden is placed on those countries where the courts of free thought and free learning still burn bright. If the fires of freedom and civil liberties burn low in other lands they must be made brighter in our own.

Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also and keep pace with the times

The present age has witnessed an extraordinary increase of a thinking public, by the facilities afforded to the diffusion of reading; the former happy resignation to ignorance begins to make way for a state of half-enlightenment, and few persons are willing to remain in the condition in which their birth has placed then.

I want to share knowledge about things I've learned over the years with a younger generation that is seeking the truth.

A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.

I wish to become a teacher of the Truth.