Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - LatestIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
Sometimes when I get to reading about it, and when I get to thinking
about it, it seems to me that I have suffered all these horrors myself,
as though I had stood upon the shore of exile and gazed with a
tear-filled eye toward home and native land; as though my nails had
been torn from my hands, and into my throat the sharp needles had been
thrust; as though my feet had been crushed in iron boots; as though I
had been chained in the cells of the Inquisition, and had watched and
waited in the interminable darkness to hear the words of release; as
though I had been taken from my fireside, from my wife and children,
and taken to the public square, chained, and fagots had been piled
around me; as though the flames had played around my limbs, and
scorched the sight from my eyes; as though my ashes had been scattered
to the four winds by the hands of hatred; as though I had stood upon
the scaffold and felt the glittering ax fall upon me. And while I feel
and see all this, I swear that while I live I will do what little I can
to augment the liberty of man, woman and child.
My friends, it is all a question of sense; it is all a question of
honesty. If there is a man in this house who is not willing to give to
everybody else what he claims for himself he is just so much nearer to
the barbarian than I am. It is a simple question of honesty; and the
man who is not willing to give to every other human being the same
intellectual rights he claims himself is a rascal, and you know it. It
is a simple question, I say, of intellectual development and of
honesty. And I want to say it now, so you will see it. You show me the
narrow, contracted man; you show me the man who claims everything for
himself and leaves nothing for others, and that man has got a distorted
and deformed brain. That is the matter with him. He has no sense; not
a bit. Let me show you.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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