Colonel Robert Green Ingersoll(Ingersoll Robert Green)

1833 - Born in Dresden, New York on the 11th of August.

         - He served as Illinois Attorney General.

         - He spoke on every subject, from Shakespeare to Reconstruction, but his most popular subjects were agnosticism and the sanctity and refuge of the family. He committed his speeches to memory although they were sometimes more than three hours long. His audiences were said never to be restless.

1884 - His speech, nominating James G. Blaine for the Presidential election, resulted in Blaine receiving the Republican nomination.

1893 - Colonel Bob Mountain in Washington state was named after him by the climbers who discovered the peak.

1899 - Died on the 21st of July, Ingersoll died from congestive heart failure, aged 65. Soon after his death, Clinton P. Farrell, a brother-in-law, collected copies of Ingersoll’s speeches for publication.

• "He loves his country best who strives to make it best."
• "It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense."
• "Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words."
• "If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane."
• "It is an old habit with theologians to beat the living with the bones of the dead."