Founding Fathers Religion Quotes - Page 6

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

  George Washington

  Religious, Truth, Freedom

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• I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.

  Thomas Jefferson

  God, Country, War

  Notes on the State of Virginia, query 18 (1781 - 1785)

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• I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved - the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!

  John Adams

  Grief, Faith Religion, Historical

  Letter to Thomas Jefferson, founders.archives.gov. September 03, 1816.

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• 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

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• We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart. In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States.

  George Washington

  Religious, Heart, Men

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1838). “The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private”, p.202

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• No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Father, Men

  Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”

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• Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history.

  James Madison

  Government, Religion, Atheism

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• Because we hold it for 'a fundamental and undeniable truth', that religion or 'the duty which we owe to our Creator' and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.

  James Madison

  Religion, Religious Truth, Fundamentals

  James Madison (1787). “The Writings of James Madison: 1783-1787”, p.184

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• History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Believe, Ignorance

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.193, Cambridge University Press

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• I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

  Thomas Paine

  Atheist, Pain, Fear

  Thomas Paine (1819). “The Theological Works of Thomas Paine”, p.4

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• ...It would be more consistent that we call [the Bible] the work of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.

  Thomas Paine

  Atheist, Faith Religion, Atheism

  Thomas Paine “The Writings of Thomas Paine”, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Question with boldness even the existence of a god.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Atheist, Faith Religion

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.90, Rowman & Littlefield

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• My heart trembles when I reflect that God is just

  Thomas Jefferson

  God, Patriotic, Heart

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• We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.

  John Adams

  Religious, Revenge, Passion

  John Adams (1854). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.229

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• Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.

  James Madison

  Religious, Atheist, Secular Society

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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• [N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

  James Madison

  Religious, Atheist, Faith Religion

  James Madison (1836). “The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: As Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia in 1787. Together with the Journal of the Federal Convention, Luther Martin's Letter, Yates's Minutes, Congressional Opinions, Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of '98-'99, and Other Illustrations of the Constitution”, p.204

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• Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not.

  James Madison

  Government, Atheism, Liberty

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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• The Bible: a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalise mankind.

  Thomas Paine

  Atheist, Faith Religion, Atheism

  Thomas Paine (1861). “The Age of Reason, etc”, p.7

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• But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Faith Religion, Departed

  Thomas Jefferson (1853). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private”, p.492

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• We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus!

  John Adams

  Bible, God, Religious

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• We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people... it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

  John Quincy Adams

  Religious, Business, 4th Of July

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• And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.

  James Madison

  Past, Government, Doubt

  James Madison, David B. Mattern (1997). “James Madison's "Advice to My Country"”, p.89, University of Virginia Press

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• I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Change, Religious, Religion

  Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution : Annotated Correspondence”, p.143, Algora Publishing

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• There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Father, Hypocrite

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• Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Atheist, Wall

  Reply to Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, and Stephen S. Nelson (committee of the Danbury, Conn., Baptist Association), 1 Jan. 1802

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