64. Liberty!
Is it nothing to free the mind? Is it nothing to civilize mankind? Is it nothing to fill the world with light, with discovery, with science? Is it nothing to dignify man and exalt the intellect? Is it nothing to grope your way into the dreary prisons, the damp and dropping dungeons, the dark and silent cells of superstition, where the souls of men are chained to floors of stone? Is it nothing to conduct these souls gradually into the blessed light of day,—to let them see again the happy fields, the sweet, green earth, and hear the everlasting music of the waves? Is it nothing to make men wipe the dust from their swollen knees, the tears from their blanched and furrowed cheeks? Is it nothing to relieve the heavens of an insatiate monster, and write upon the eternal dome, glittering with stars, the grand word—Liberty?
65. Ingersoll Not a Politician
I want it perfectly understood that I am not a politician. I believe in liberty, and I want to see the time when every man, woman and child will enjoy every human right.
66. Civilization
Civilization is the child of free thought. The new world has drifted away from the rotten wharf of superstition. The politics of this country are being settled by the new ideas of individual liberty, and parties and churches that cannot accept the new truths must perish.