What's God Got to Do With It?: Robert Ingersoll on Free Thought, Honest Talk and the Separation of Church and State

by Robert G. Ingersoll

In my judgment, the woman is the equal of the man. She has all the rights I have and one more, and that is the right to be protected.

We know, if we know anything, that the lightning is just as apt to hit a good man as a bad man. We know it. We know that the earthquake is just as liable to swallow virtue as to swallow vice. And you know just as well as I do that a ship loaded with pirates is just as apt to outride the storm as one crowded with missionaries. You know it.

We Know.

Now and then society becomes so pious, so virtuous, that people are compelled to enter saloons by the back door; others are compelled to drink beer with the front shutters up; but otherwise the stream that goes down the thirsty throats is unbroken.