Robert G. Ingersoll Quotes

The progress of freedom depends more upon the maintenance of peace, the spread of commerce and the diffusion of education, then upon the labors of cabinets and foreign offices.

Commerce is a core component of pretty much any successful society.

The history of commerce is that of the communication of the people.

Africa needs access to markets.

Openness has been vital to Asia's fast growth in the past and it will continue to be crucial for the area's further development.

The civilized world is far ahead of us. We have no choice but to catch up.

The major challenge facing us is to elevate our national life to the highest level of civilization and prosperity.

The enhancement of the profits of agriculture, the excitement of manufacturing industry, the activity of internal trade, the benefits of lucrative traffic; the interchange of valuable commodities – the commerce of fertile, remote, and wide-spread regions, and the approximation of the most distant parts of the Union, by the facility and rapidity of communication that will result from the completion of these stupendous works, will spread the blessings of plenty and opulence to an immeasurable extent. The resources of the State are fully adequate without extraneous aid; and when we consider that every portion of the nation will feel the animating spirit and vivifying influences of these great works; that they will receive the benediction of posterity and command the approbation of the civilized world; we are required to persevere by every dictate of interest, by every sentiment of honor, by every injunction of patriotism, and by every consideration which ought to influence the councils and govern the conduct of a free, high-minded, enlightened, and magnanimous people.

The duty of an American churchman in China is not simply introducing new ideas into the country, but modifying its industrial, social, and political life and institutions. Missionaries are the pioneers of trade and commerce. Civilization, learning, instruction breed new wants which commerce supplies.

Go ask Virginia— go ask even noble Maryland ... to show you her people, canals, railroads, universities, schools, charities, commerce cities, and cultivated areas.

A nation may be ever so civilized and yet lack wisdom.

We have made a huge amount of progress over the last 50 years by enabling trade, by enabling kind of collaboration and learning. And actually, in fact, when you look at your average 30-year-old today, they're much better off than a 30-year-old 20 years ago, 30 years ago, because of progress in technology and health care and all the rest of this.

Civilization is not a burden. It is an opportunity.

The quantity of civilization is measured by the quality of imagination.

Without the library, you have no civilization.

Honor commerce as the engine of change.

Thomas Friedman's 'The World is Flat' sold more copies in India than in the U.K. The market for go-getting business books or wonkish tomes by corporate moguls posing as philosopher kings has grown dramatically in modernising China and India.

Art is like a border of flowers along the course of civilization.

If history could teach us anything, it would be that private property is inextricably linked with civilization.

Civilization is merely an advance in taste: accepting, all the time, nicer things, and rejecting nasty ones.

Cities are the greatest creations of humanity.

The history of Europe over the last several centuries provides clear evidence of the transformative power of commerce.

Progress in civilization has been accompanied by progress in cookery.

I like globalization; I want to say it works, but it is hard to say that when six hundred million people are slipping backwards.

Business follows the flag …. Where there is stability and security, there is likely to be investment.