Robert Ingersoll Test of Courage
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
Winston ChurchillIt is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had the individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions.
Robert Green IngersollCourage without conscience is a wild beast.
Robert Green IngersollThe greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.
Robert Green IngersollTo Robert Nichols
(From Frise on the Somme in February, 1917, in answer to a letter saying: “I am just finishing my ‘Faun’s Holiday.’ I wish you were here to feed him with cherries.”)
Here by a snowbound river
In scrapen holes we shiver,
And like old bitterns we
Boom to you plaintively:
Robert, how can I rhyme
Verses for your desire—
Sleek fauns and cherry-time,
Vague music and green trees,
Hot sun and gentle breeze,
England in June attire,
And life born young again,
For your gay goatish brute
Drunk with warm melody
Singing on beds of thyme
With red and rolling eye,
Waking with wanton lute
All the Devonian plain,
Lips dark with juicy stain,
Ears hung with bobbing fruit?
Why should I keep him time?
Why in this cold and rime,
Where even to dream is pain?
No, Robert, there’s no reason:
Cherries are out of season,
Ice grips at branch and root,
And singing birds are mute.
Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.
Robert Louis StevensonSuccess is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Winston ChurchillWhen the will defies fear, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, when honor scorns to compromise with death - that is heroism.
Robert Green IngersollThe superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenseless. He stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.
Robert Green IngersollIt is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.
Robert Green IngersollFew nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god market was fairly glutted and heaven crammed with these phantoms.
Robert Green IngersollHope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.
Robert Green IngersollHe stands erect by bending over the fallen. He rises by lifting others.
Robert Green IngersollA fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether it is or is not a fact. A lie will not fit anything except another lie.
Robert Green IngersollMy creed is that; Happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to make others so.
Robert Green IngersollInsolence is not logic; epithets are the arguments of malice.
Robert Green IngersollAnger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.
Robert IngersollAny doctrine that will not bear investigation is not a fit tenant for the mind of an honest man.
Robert IngersollHappiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.
Robert IngersollOur hope of immortality does not come from any religions, but nearly all religions come from that hope.
Robert Ingersoll
