WIST Quotations

Ingersoll, Robert Green -- Lecture (1884-01-20), “Orthodoxy,” Tabor Opera House, Denver, Colorado

Dave — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 23:51:36 +0000

In his infinite goodness, God invented rheumatism and gout and dyspepsia, cancers and neuralgia, and is still inventing new diseases. Not only this, but he decreed the pangs of mothers, and that by the gates of love and life should crouch the dragons of death and pain. Fearing that some might, by accident, live too long, he planted poisonous vines and herbs that looked like food. He caught the serpents he had made and gave them fangs and curious organs, ingeniously devised to distill and deposit the deadly drop. He changed the nature of the beasts, that they might feed on human flesh. He cursed a world, and tainted every spring and source of joy. He poisoned every breath of air; corrupted even light, that it might bear disease on every ray; tainted every drop of blood in human veins; touched every nerve, that it might bear the double fruit of pain and joy; decreed all accidents and mistakes that maim and hurt and kill, and set the snares of life-long grief, baited with present pleasure, — with a moment’s joy. Then and there he foreknew and foreordained all human tears. And yet all this is but the prelude, the introduction, to the infinite revenge of the good God. Increase and multiply all human griefs until the mind has reached imagination’s farthest verge, then add eternity to time, and you may faintly tell, but never can conceive, the infinite horrors of this doctrine called “The Fall of Man.”

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Lecture (1884-01-20), “Orthodoxy,” Tabor Opera House, Denver, Colorado
(Source)

Published as its own book in 1884.

Adams, Douglas -- Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Phase 1, “Fit the 5th” (BBC radio) (1978-04-05)

Dave — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 17:59:15 +0000

NARRATOR: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English author, humorist, screenwriter
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Phase 1, “Fit the 5th” (BBC radio) (1978-04-05)
(Source)

This passage, without change, appears in the second novelization, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, ch. 1 (1980).

Ingersoll, Robert Green -- Lecture (1884-01-20), “Orthodoxy,” Tabor Opera House, Denver, Colorado

Dave — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 23:04:24 +0000

Does any intelligent man now believe that God made man of dust, and woman of a rib, and put them in a garden, and put a tree in the midst of it? Was there not room outside of the garden to put his tree, if he did not want people to eat his apples?
If I did not want a man to eat my fruit, I would not put him in my orchard.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Lecture (1884-01-20), “Orthodoxy,” Tabor Opera House, Denver, Colorado
(Source)

Published as its own book in 1884.

Ingersoll, Robert Green -- Lecture (1872-01-29), “The Gods,” Fairbury Hall, Fairbury, Illinois

Dave — Fri, 26 Dec 2025 21:12:41 +0000

What would we think of a father, who should give a farm to his children, and before giving them possession should plant upon it thousands of deadly shrubs and vines; should stock it with ferocious beasts, and poisonous reptiles; should take pains to put a few swamps in the neighborhood to breed malaria; should so arrange matters, that the ground would occasionally open and swallow a few of his darlings, and besides all this, should establish a few volcanoes in the immediate vicinity, that might at any moment overwhelm his children with rivers of fire? Suppose that this father neglected to tell his children which of the plants were deadly; that the reptiles were poisonous; failed to say anything about the earthquakes, and kept the volcano business a profound secret; would we pronounce him angel or fiend?
And yet this is exactly what the orthodox God has done.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Lecture (1872-01-29), “The Gods,” Fairbury Hall, Fairbury, Illinois
(Source)

First given on the 135th birthday of Thomas Paine. Collected in The Gods and Other Lectures (1876).

Milligan, Spike -- The Bible According to Spike Milligan, “The Creation According to the Trade Unions” (1994)

Dave — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 16:17:54 +0000

And God said, Let there be light, and there was light; but Eastern Electricity Board said He would have to wait until Thursday to be connected.

Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (1918-2002) Anglo-Irish comedian, writer, actor
The Bible According to Spike Milligan, “The Creation According to the Trade Unions” (1994)
(Source)

Quoted in Spike Milligan's Meaning of Life: A Sort of Autobiography, ch. 1 (2011) [ed. Norma Farnes]

Ackroyd, Peter -- The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (1983)

Dave — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 12:45:16 +0000

I believe that the gods themselves are frightened of the world which they have fashioned.

Peter Ackroyd (b. 1949) English biographer, novelist, critic
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (1983)

Scalzi, John -- The Ghost Brigades, ch. 13 (2006)

Dave — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 12:12:11 +0000

She was temptable — which, if you believe in an all-powerful God, means God intentionally put temptation into Eve. Which seems like a dirty trick, if you ask me.

John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
The Ghost Brigades, ch. 13 (2006)

Twain, Mark -- The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson, ch. 2 (1894)

Dave — Wed, 03 Sep 2014 15:21:15 +0000

Adam was but human — this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple’s sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson, ch. 2 (1894)

Paine, Thomas -- Common Sense (14 Feb 1776)

Dave — Fri, 18 May 2012 20:41:51 +0000

We have it in our power to begin the world over again.

Thomas Paine (1737-1809) American political philosopher and writer
Common Sense (14 Feb 1776)

Berry, Wendell -- Essay (1988), “God and Country,” What Are People For? (1990)

Dave — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:01:42 +0000

The ecological teaching of the Bible is simply inescapable: God made the world because He wanted it made. He thinks the world is good, and He loves it. It is His world; He has never relinquished title to it. And He has never revoked the conditions, bearing on His gift to us of the use of it, that oblige us to take excellent care of it.

Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
Essay (1988), “God and Country,” What Are People For? (1990)
(Source)