WIST Quotations

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

Dave — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 20:27:10 +0000

Nothing is so pleasing to these gods as the butchery of unbelievers. Nothing so enrages them, even now, as to have some one deny their existence.

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).

Ingersoll, Robert Green -- “Thomas Paine” (1870)

Dave — Mon, 08 Feb 2021 20:17:25 +0000

Nothing so outrages the feelings of the church as a moral unbeliever — nothing so horrible as a charitable Atheist.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
“Thomas Paine” (1870)
(Source)

Emerson, Ralph Waldo -- “Man the Reformer,” lecture, Boston (1841-01-25)

Dave — Wed, 25 Oct 2017 01:03:07 +0000

Love would put a new face on this weary old world in which we dwell as pagans and enemies too long.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Man the Reformer,” lecture, Boston (1841-01-25)
(Source)

Stoppard, Tom -- Jumpers, Act 1 (1972)

Dave — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 11:41:21 +0000

GEORGE: There is presumably a calendar date — a moment — when the onus of proof passed from the atheist to the believer, when, quite suddenly, secretly, the noes had it.

Tom Stoppard (1937-2025) Czech-English playwright and screenwriter
Jumpers, Act 1 (1972)

Whitehead, Alfred North -- “Mathematics and the Good,” The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, ed. Paul A. Schilpp (1941)

Dave — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 13:16:59 +0000

The thorough skeptic is a dogmatist. He enjoys the delusion of complete futility.

Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) English mathematician and philosopher
“Mathematics and the Good,” The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, ed. Paul A. Schilpp (1941)