Robert G. Ingersoll Quotes
It is almost impossible to overtake, and kill, and bury a lie. If you do, some one will erect a monument over the grave, and the lie is born again as an epitaph.
Ingersoll was considered to be the greatest orator and political thinker of his day, but his overt atheistic views curtailed his elected political career.
Robert Green Ingersoll, 1833-1899, Attorney General of Illinois (Republican), Quoted in Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, Studies In Rationalism
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
McClellan after he left his White House Post, reflected on the experience, and wrote a book that described the George W. Bush White House practices many of which he was involved with.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
See {115604} for a similar sentiment from England.
He was referring to the George W. Bush and his behavior on the Iraq War.
The Presidential Campaigns of 2008 and 2012 shocked many Americans for the blatant lies that opponents of President Obama wrote and broadcast and then some of the retaliatory lies that Obama defenders responded with. However, this quotation from a 19th century political historian shows us that blatant lying in American politics is not at all new.
This sentiment was apparently first expressed by the English Calvinist Minister, Charles Spurgeon, 1834-1892.
Sinclair was running for the governorship of California and initial polls showed that he was way ahead. Major Conservatives from the country over contributed money to defeat him—more money at the time than had ever been raised even for a Presidential campaign. The Conservatives hired the first political consultants who would advise on an American Campaign throughs a corporation they established Campaigns Inc. The consultants began creating posters and pamphlets many of which were total fabrications attacking Sinclair and then went through his novels that he had written and took quotes from character dialogues in his novels including some of the villain characters who said vile things. They attributed all these terrible quotation to Sinclair, put them into printed pamphlets and distributed them all over the state. Sinclair lost making the assumption that few people would believe the lies that were being issued from Campaign Inc. After that race, political consultants began to work in many campaigns, and with that came more negative campaigning, attacks and more falsehood and lies entered the American political scene.
Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll was an American lawyer, a Civil War veteran, political leader, and orator of the United States during the Golden Age of Free Thought, noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of agnosticism. He was nicknamed "The Great Agnostic". Ingersoll was considered to be the greatest orator and political thinker of his day, but his overt atheistic views curtailed his elected political career.
