America's Christian Heritage - Great Quotes

[Book of Jeremiah]

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…
-Thomas Jefferson

 

[Agit8r]

"Is there not, my friend, reason to believe, that the principles of Democratic Republicanism are already better understood than they were before; and that by the continued efforts of Men of Science and Virtue, they will extend more and more till the turbulent and destructive Spirit of War shall cease?—The proud oppressors over the Earth shall be totally broken down and those classes of Men who have hitherto been the victims of their rage and cruelty shall perpetually enjoy perfect Peace and Safety till time shall be no more."
-- Samuel Adams; letter to Thomas Jefferson (Nov, 18th 1801)

 

[BULLDOG]

 

[Agit8r]

"Epictetus and Epicurus give laws for governing ourselves, Jesus a supplement of the duties and charities we owe to others. The establishment of the innocent and genuine character of this benevolent moralist, and the rescuing it from the imputation of imposture, which has resulted from artificial systems, invented by ultra-Christian sects, and unauthorized by a single word ever uttered by him... would in time, it is to be hoped, effect a quiet euthanasia of the heresies of bigotry and fanaticism which have so long triumphed over human reason, and so generally and deeply afflicted mankind"
-- Thomas Jefferson; from letter to William Short (October 31, 1819)

"The room being hung around with a collection of the portraits of remarkable men, among them were those of Bacon, Newton and Locke. Hamilton asked me who they were. I told him they were my trinity of the three greatest men the world had ever produced"
-- Thomas Jefferson; from letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush (January 16, 1811)

 

[Agit8r]

"The tone of your letters had for some time given me pain, on account of the extreme warmth with which they censured the proceedings of the Jacobins of France. I considered that sect as the same with the Republican patriots... My own affections have been deeply wounded by some of the martyrs to this cause, but rather than it should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated."
-- Thomas Jefferson; from letter to William Short (January 3, 1793)

 

[Agit8r]

"mysteries belong to religion, not to government; to the ways of the Almighty, not to the works of man."
-- James Madison; from 'Who Are the Best Keepers of the People’s Liberties' (December 20, 1792)

 

[Agit8r]

"Notwithstanding the general progress made within the two last centuries in favour of this branch of liberty, & the full establishment of it in some parts of our Country, there remains in others a strong bias towards the old error that without some sort of alliance or coalition between Gov' & Religion neither can be duly supported: Such indeed is the tendency to such a coalition, and such its corrupting influence on both the parties, that the danger cannot be too carefully guarded against"
-- James Madison, from letter to Edward Livingston (July 10, 1822,)

 

[Agit8r]

"I am persuaded, that if mankind would dare to exercise their reason as freely on those divine topics as they do in the common concerns of life, they would, in a great measure, rid themselves of their blindness and superstition, gain more exalted ideas of God and their obligations to him and one another, and be proportionally delighted and blessed with the views of his moral government, make better members of society, and acquire, manly powerful incentives to the practice of morality, which is the last and greatest perfection that human nature is capable of."
-- Ethan Allan; 'Reason: The Only Oracle Of Man'

 

[Agit8r]

"Cruelty to brute animals is another means of destroying moral sensibility. The ferocity of savages has been ascribed in part to their peculiar mode of subsistence. Mr. Hogarth points out, in his ingenious prints, the connection between cruelty to brute animals in youth, and murder in manhood. I am so perfectly satisfied of the truth of a connection between morals and humanity to brutes, that I shall find it difficult to restrain my idolatry for that legislature, that shall first establish a system of laws, to defend them from outrage and oppression."
-- Benjamin Rush; from 'An inquiry into the influence of physical causes upon the moral faculty'