Christian Morality Quotes

• Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness.

  Samuel Adams

  Religion, Liberty, Foundation

  66 Copy quote

• Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can exist apart from religious principle.

  George Washington

  Religious, Truth, Freedom

  26 Copy quote

• Giving to the poor is an essential part of Christian morality.

  C. S. Lewis

  Christian, Giving, Essentials

  C.S. Lewis (1996). “Joyful Christian”, p.143, Simon and Schuster

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Without Virtue there can be no liberty

  Benjamin Rush

  Freedom, Liberty, Morality

  Benjamin Rush (1806). “Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical ...”, p.8

  71 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

  John Adams

  Bible, God, Religious

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1854). “Works: with a life of the author”, p.229

  357 Copy quote

  Show source

• Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

  George Washington

  Education, Wisdom, Religious

  Noah Webster, George Washington (1806). “Elements of useful knowledge: containing a historical and geographical account of the United States”, p.217

  102 Copy quote

  Show source

• [I]t is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue.

  John Adams

  Liberty, Foundation, Principles

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1854). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.401

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation deserts the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in the Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the opposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

  George Washington

  Religious, Justice, Mind

  George Washington’s "Farewell Address", oll.libertyfund.org. September 19, 1796.

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Religious, Atheist

  Thomas Jefferson (2011). “The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 7: 28 November 1813 to 30 September 1814”, p.248, Princeton University Press

  55 Copy quote

  Show source

• Let us with Caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.

  George Washington

  Religious, Godly, Indulge In

  George Washington, United States. President (1789-1797 : Washington) (1847). “Washington's Farewell Address to the People of the United States of America: Published in September, 1796”, p.9

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• A strange fanaticism fills our time: the fanatical hatred of morality, especially of Christian morality.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Christian, Hatred, Morality

  5 Copy quote

• While all too many people live in dire poverty, others are caught up in materialism and lifestyles which are destructive of family life and the most basic demands of Christian morality.

  Pope Francis

  Christian, People, Demand

  Pope Francis “The Blessing of Family: Inspiring Words from Pope Francis”, Franciscan Media

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Atheist, Fear, Reality

  "The Antichrist". Book by Friedrich Nietzsche, Sec. 16, 1888.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• The only foundation for . . . a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.

  Benjamin Rush

  Bible, God, Religious

  Benjamin Rush (1806). “Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical ...”, p.8

  105 Copy quote

  Show source

• In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars.

  George Washington

  Men, Religion, Pillars

  George Washington, United States. President (1789-1797 : Washington) (1847). “Washington's Farewell Address to the People of the United States of America: Published in September, 1796”, p.9

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him (i.e. Jesus) by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Jesus, Ignorance

  16 Copy quote

• The Church worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One doesn't know whether to laugh or to cry. Who discovered that there was no such thing as a witch - the priest, the parson? No, these never discover anything.

  Mark Twain

  God, Christian, Army

  "Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations".

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure (and) which insures to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.

  Charles Carroll of Carrollton

  Christian, Government, Sublime

  40 Copy quote

• Houses of Congress have . . . requested me to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the many signal favors of Almighty God.

  George Washington

  Thanksgiving, God, Prayer

  George Washington (1837). “The Writings of George Washington: pt. V. Speeches and messages to Congress, proclamations, and addresses”, p.119

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation deserts the oaths . . . ?

  George Washington

  Religious, Religion, Desert

  George Washington (1837). “The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts; with a Life of the Author, Notes, and Illustrations”, p.227

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means self-evident. Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole. It stands or falls with faith in God.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Christian, Giving Up, Fall

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2016). “Twilight of the Idols”, p.58, Friedrich Nietzsche

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• These principles have been proclaimed by God, by the Church, by the Saints, by Christian reason and morals.

  Pope Pius XII

  Christian, Church, Principles

  "The Pope Speaks: The Teachings of Pope Pius XII".

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Because Christian morality leaves animals out of account, they are at once outlawed in philosophical morals; they are mere 'things,' mere means to any ends whatsoever. They can therefore be used for vivisection, hunting, coursing, bullfights, and horse racing, and can be whipped to death as they struggle along with heavy carts of stone. Shame on such a morality that is worthy of pariahs, and that fails to recognize the eternal essence that exists in every living thing, and shines forth with inscrutable significance from all eyes that see the sun!

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Christian, Horse, Struggle

  27 Copy quote

• It may be too much to expect that nations should be governed in their relations towards each other by the precepts of Christian morality, but surely it is not too much to ask that they should conform to the code of courtesy and good breeding recognized among gentlemen in the intercourse of social life.

  George Stillman Hillard

  Christian, Gentleman, Too Much

  George Stillman Hillard “Life and Campaigns of George B. McClellan, Major-General, U. S. Army”, Charles River Editors

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction; it is, in great part, a protest against Paganism. Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than action; innocence rather than Nobleness; Abstinence from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of Good: in its precepts (as has been well said) "thou shalt not" predominates unduly over "thou shalt.

  John Stuart Mill

  Christian, Character, Evil

  "On Liberty". Philosophical work by John Stuart Mill (ch. II: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion), 1859.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source