I will follow my logic, no matter where it goes, after it has consulted with my heart. If you ever come to a conclusion without calling the heart in, you will come to a bad conclusion.
Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence of its creator, God. While I have life, as long as I draw breath, I shall deny with all my strength, and hate with every drop of my blood, this infinite lie.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses a strong rejection of the idea of God and the concept of hell, emphasizing personal conviction against a perceived lie.
In this quote, Robert Green Ingersoll articulates his deep disdain for the concept of hell and the God he associates with it. He believes that the very presence of God would intensify the horror of hell, indicating a profound conflict between his values and the traditional notions of divine justice. The assertion that he will deny this 'infinite lie' with every fiber of his being speaks to his commitment to atheism and his determination to challenge the fear-based narratives of religion.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a debate about the morality of religion.
More from Robert Green Ingersoll
All quotes →If the guardians of society, the protectors of 'young persons,' could have had their way, we should have known nothing of Byron or Shelley. The voices that thrill the world would now be silent.
The religion that has to be supported by law is without value, not only, but a fraud and a curse. The religious argument that has to be supported by a musket is hardly worth making.
There is no slavery but ignorance.
In all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. They have worshiped their destroyers; they have canonized the most gigantic liars, and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. Under the loftiest monuments sleeps the dust of murder.
I believe that there is something far nobler than loyalty to any particular man. Loyalty to the truth as we perceive it - loyalty to our duty as we know it - loyalty to the ideals of our brain and heart - is, to my mind, far greater and far nobler than loyalty to the life of any particular man or God. . . .
Similar quotes
Ours is a multi-religious country, a multi-lingual country; we have many different modes of worship. We believe in peaceful and harmonious co-existence.
Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself.
If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.
Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.
When a shepherd goes to kill a wolf, and takes his dog to see the sport, he should take care to avoid mistakes. The dog has certain relationships to the wolf the shepherd may have forgotten.
Natural rights are those which always appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the rights of others.