Robert G. Ingersoll Quotes

Moral liberty is the power of following, in all circumstances, our sense of right and wrong, or of acting in conformity to our reflecting and moral principles, without being controlled by any contrary principles.

To deny the freedom of the will is to make morality impossible.

The more...we consider man to be free, the less we can say, that he can neglect to use reason, or choose evil in preference to good

Judgement is given to men that they may use it. Because it may be used erroneously, are men to be told that they ought not to use it at all?

[R]eason is... given to us as a practical faculty, that is, as one that influences the will.

To choose evil is to choose freedom, emancipation from all restraint.

Our moral traditions developed concurrently with our reason, not as its product.

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

The only freedom I care about is the freedom to do right; the freedom to do wrong I am ready to part with on the cheapest terms to anyone who will take it of me.

The power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of all.

If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.

I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.

In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason.

Bur what is Freedom? Rightly understood, A Universal license to be good.

Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

Morality depends on individual freedom, and it requires some sense to know where to draw the line.

Everythings a choice. Nobody's born good. Nobody's born evil. It's always a choice.

This is plainly to ascribe divinity to 'free will.'

Reason can no more influence the will, and operate as a motive, than the eyes which show a man his road can enable him to move from place to place, or that a ship provided with a compass can sail without a wind.

It must always be remembered that you can never do right until you are first free to do wrong; since the doing of a thing under compulsion is evidence neither of good nor bad intent; and if under compulsion, who shall decide what would be the substituted rule of action under full freedom?

Liberty is an opportunity for doing good, but this is only so when it is also an opportunity for doing wrong.

Choice is the essence of ethics: if there were no choice there would be no ethics, no good, no evil; good and evil have meaning only insofar as man is free to choose.

Liberty is the essential precondition for achieving virtue... In order to exercise virtue, we need to have the ability to choose freely.

There exists in our society widespread fear of judging…[B]ehind the unwillingness to judge lurks the suspicion that no one is a free agent, and hence doubt that anyone is responsible or could be expected to answer for what he has done…Who has ever maintained that by judging a wrong I presuppose that I myself would be incapable of committing it?