Who really said it

The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so

Q: Did Robert G. Ingersoll say "The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so"?

Yes. This is genuinely Ingersoll. The exact three-sentence wording — including "the place to be happy is here" — is documented in his phonograph recording of 22 January 1899, reported in The Junction City Republican on 3 February 1899. The same thought (without the "here" clause) closes his celebrated 1872 lecture "The Gods", which is where the closing word "so" comes from — the popular sentence lightly blends his two phrasings, but every clause is his.

Spoken by Robert G. Ingersoll 1833–1899 · American orator & freethinker

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This is genuinely Ingersoll. The exact three-sentence wording — including “the place to be happy is here” — is documented in his phonograph recording of 22 January 1899, reported in The Junction City Republican on 3 February 1899. The same thought (without the “here” clause) closes his celebrated 1872 lecture “The Gods” ↗, which is where the closing word “so” comes from — the popular sentence lightly blends his two phrasings, but every clause is his.

Last verified 10 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so” Robert G. Ingersoll, phonograph recording, 1899 (reported in The Junction City Republican, 3 Feb 1899); kindred passage in his 1872 lecture "The Gods."

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In context

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Provenance

The source

Spoken by: Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899)
Exact wording: Phonograph recording, 22 Jan 1899
Kindred passage: “The Gods” (lecture, 1872)
Reported in: The Junction City Republican, 3 Feb 1899

Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now; the place to be happy is here; and the way to be happy is to make others happy.

The 1899 recording as reported in The Junction City Republican. The widely-shared version ends “…to make others so,” echoing the close of his 1872 lecture “The Gods.”

Quote Investigator: the full chronology

How we traced it

Quote Investigator ↗ traces the line to Ingersoll and shows “the place to be happy is here” first appearing in his 1899 phonograph recording.
The two-part thought — “happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so” — closes his 1872 lecture “The Gods” ↗.
Wikiquote ↗ lists the three-part version under Ingersoll in its main sourced quotes.

Public domain

Ingersoll died in 1899 and both documented sources — his 1872 lecture “The Gods” and the 1899 phonograph recording reported in The Junction City Republican — were published well before 1931, so the wording is in the public domain in the United States.

Fact-check

Set the record straight

The attribution is right — this really is Ingersoll. What’s usually wrong is where people say it comes from, and the exact wording that gets quoted.

“The Gods” lecture (as the source of the full wording) Right author, wrong source

Many sites tie the complete three-part wording to Ingersoll’s 1872 lecture “The Gods” ↗. But that lecture’s peroration has only two of the three clauses — “the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so” — with no “place to be happy is here.”

“…to make others so” vs. “…to make others happy” Composite wording

The circulating sentence blends his two phrasings: the “place to be happy is here” clause comes from his 1899 phonograph recording ↗ (which ends “…make others happy”), while the ending “…make others so” comes from the 1872 lecture.

Every clause is genuinely Ingersoll’s — but the exact three-sentence wording with “the place to be happy is here” is documented in his 1899 recording ↗, not the 1872 lecture people usually name.

Context

Why it caught on

Ingersoll built this line over nearly thirty years of lecturing. Its earliest form — “happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so” — is the ringing close of his 1872 lecture “The Gods,” his humanist answer to a culture that deferred all reward to the afterlife.

By the time he recorded his voice on an early phonograph in 1899, months before his death, he had added the middle beat — “the place to be happy is here” — giving the creed its now-familiar three-part cadence of now · here · others.

The time to be happy is now; the place to be happy is here.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Happiness Kindness Purpose

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: The Time To Be Happy Is Nowquoteinvestigator.com

The authoritative chronology, tracing the line to Ingersoll and dating the “here” clause to his 1899 recording.

Robert G. Ingersollen.wikiquote.org

Sourced Ingersoll quotations, including this creed-like passage.

“Reason, Observation and Experience” (The Gods)libquotes.com

The two-part peroration of the 1872 lecture “The Gods,” the source of the “make others so” wording.

The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Gutenberg)gutenberg.org

Full public-domain texts of Ingersoll’s collected lectures, including “The Gods.”

Robert G. Ingersollen.wikipedia.org

Biography of “The Great Agnostic,” the 19th-century orator credited with the line.

The true author

About Robert G. Ingersoll

Robert G. Ingersoll

1833–1899 · American orator, lawyer & freethinker (‘The Great Agnostic’)

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833–1899) was a Civil War veteran, Illinois lawyer, and the most famous American orator of his day, celebrated for spellbinding lectures championing reason, science, and human happiness over religious dogma — earning him the nickname “The Great Agnostic.” His 1872 lecture “The Gods” closes with the creed that happiness is the only good and “the time to be happy is now,” a line he polished across decades of speaking.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Robert G. Ingersoll, phonograph recording, 22 January 1899, reported in The Junction City Republican (Junction City, KS), 3 February 1899; kindred passage in “The Gods” (lecture, 1872), The Gods and Other Lectures (Peoria, IL, 1876).

MLA (9th ed.)

Ingersoll, Robert G. Phonograph recording, 22 Jan. 1899. Reported in The Junction City Republican, 3 Feb. 1899.

APA (7th ed.)

Ingersoll, R. G. (1899, February 3). Phonograph recording of Robert G. Ingersoll (January 22, 1899). The Junction City Republican.

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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so’?” Last verified 10 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-time-to-be-happy-is-now-the-place-to-be-happy-is-here