Robert G. Ingersoll Quotes

Although a system may cease to exist in the legal sense or as a structure of power, its values (or anti-values), its philosophy, its teachings remain in us. They rule our thinking, our conduct, our attitude to others. The situation is a demonic paradox: we have toppled the system but we still carry its genes.

For the most part we inherit our opinions. We are the heirs of habits and mental customs. Our beliefs, like the fashion of our garments, depend on where we were born. We are molded and fashioned by our surroundings.

Inherited ideas are a curious thing, and interesting to observe and examine.

Everyone just did what their parents did. So that immediately made me skeptical of the whole religion thing, even as a kid. So I never was really into religion as a concept.

Two quite opposite qualities equally bias our minds - habits and novelty.

Activities that seem to represent choices are often inert reproductions of accepted practice.

When you're brought up in a Unionist culture, you can't help but feel Unionist.

Prejudice is a learned trait. You're not born prejudiced; you're taught it.

We have been brainwashed into craving a diet that is killing us. What we believe tastes good is generally what we have been socially conditioned to enjoy.

History is hereditary only in this way: we, all of us, inherit everything, and then we choose what to cherish, what to disavow, and what to do next, which is why it's worth trying to know where things come from.

Our humanity rests upon a series of learned behaviors, woven together into patterns that are infinitely fragile and never directly inherited.

Some believe all that parents, tutors, and kindred believe. They take their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their estates, because they are born heirs to them.

No work of history can ever escape its own time...we are all influenced by what we read and what we experience.

The habit of an opinion often leads to the complete conviction of its truth, it hides the weaker parts of it, and makes us incapable of accepting the proofs against it.

I've inherited my mom's nurturing side, but I've also gotten her 'chronically five minutes late for everything' side, too!

Family habits die hard.

Isn't it a remarkable coincidence almost everyone has the same religion as their parents ? And it always just happens to be the right religion. Religions run in families. If we'd been brought up in ancient Greece we would all be worshiping Zeus and Apollo. If we had been born Vikings we would be worshiping Wotan and Thor. How does this come about ? Through childhood indoctrination.

I think that man is conditioned to violence.

[There are m]oral precepts that we consider really important, such as 'don't pick your nose' or 'don't eat peas with a knife'. There may, for ought I know, be admirable reasons for eating peas with a knife, but . . . early persuasion has made me completely incapable of appreciating them.

There are ten church-members by inheritance for one by conviction.

We found out that you can't pass on acquired things like bigotry, prejudice, greed. That's all learned in your culture or your sub-culture

Our sexual self is a complex combination of our social, cultural, and biological inheritance.

What we know and believe is just a program; it is nothing but words, opinions, and ideas we learn from others and from our own life experience.

What we believe as human nature in actuality is human habit.

Clearly much that seemed valid seemed so only because he had been taught it from earliest youth.