INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES
"You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all the religion of Jesus Christ." (President George Washington to the Delaware Indian Chiefs on Aug 12, 1779) "It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God,. to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits , and humbly to implore his protection and favor… beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether inpublic or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed" (President George Washington, Thanks giving Proclamation, October 3, 1789) "Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits... or the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed... and in general for all the great and various favors which He hath been pleased to confer upon us." (President George Washington, Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1789) "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily.” —George Washington |
"Whatever else history may say about me when I'm gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty's lamp guiding your steps and opportunity's arm steadying your way."—Ronald Reagan |
 “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” — President John Adams"I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is worth more than all the means...” —John Adams |
"Work as if you were to live 100 years; pray as if you were to die tomorrow." — Ben Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac, May 1757 |
| “Religion, or the Duty which we owe our Creator, and the Manner of discharging it, can be directed only by Reason and Convictions, not by Force or Violence; and Therefore all Men are equally entitled to the free exercise of Religion, according to the Dictates of Conscience; and that it is the mutual Duty of all to practice Christian Forbearance, Love, and Charity towards each other.” - Virginia Bill of Rights |
 "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!" —Patrick Henry |
"In regard to the Freat Book, I have only to say that it is the best Book that God has fiven to man" —Abraham Lincoln |
"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." —John Quincy Adams “Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Saviour?” —John Quincy Adams, 1837 |
 "We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government... according to the Ten Commandments of God." —James Madison |
"It is my fervent prayer to that Almighty Being before whom I now stand, and who has kept us in His hands from the infancy of ourRepublic to the present day...that He will...inspire the hearts of my fellow-citizens that we may be preserved from danger." |
"Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.”— Theodore Roosevelt |
 "When you have read the Bible, you know it is the word of God, Because it is the key to your heart, your own happiness and your own duty." — Woodrow Wilson |
 “There is no national security but in the nation’s humble, acknowledged dependence upon God.” — President Franklin Pierce (1853) |
 “Cultivate peace... With all nations.... In a spirit of Christian benevolence.” — President James Buchanan (1857) |
 “America... Cherishes no purpose save to merit the favor of Almighty God.” — President Calvin Coolidge (1925)"Settlers came here from mixed motives...Generally defined, they were seeking a broader freedom. They were intent upon establishing a Christian commonwealth in accordance to the principle of self-government... It has been said that God sifted the nations that He might send choice grain into the wilderness." ".... They had a genius for organized society on the foundations of piety, righteousness, liberty, and obedience of the law... Who can fail to see in it the hand of destiny? Who can doubt that it has been guided by a Divine Providence?" - President Calvin Coolidge (May 31, 1923 Memorial Day) “No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave. — President Calvin Coolidge |
“God’s might to direct me, God’s power to protect me.” — St. Patrick |
"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever." — Thomas Jefferson (These words inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.) |
 "If no other consideration had convinced me of the value of the Christian life, the Christlike work which the Church of all denominations in America has done during the last 35 years for the elevation of the black man would have made me a Christian." — Booker T. Washington in "Up From Slavery", 1907. |
 "The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority." — Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. |
"All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible." —Noah Webster, The History of the United States, published in 1832. "In some countries the common people are not permitted to read the Bible at all. In ours, it is as common as a newspaper and in schools is read with nearly the same degree of respect." —Noah Webster, 1788 essay "On the Education of Youth in America," printed in Webster's American Magazine. |
 "Christianity has therefore retained a strong hold on the public mind in America... In the United States... Christianity itself is a fact so irresistibly established, that no one undertakes either to attcak or to defend it." — Alexis de Tocqueville, in Book Two of Democracy in America, 1835. |
 William Shakespeare died the same day the Pilgrims landed in America at Plymouth Rock, April 23, 1616. Four years earlier he wrote in his Will: "I commend my soul into the hands of God, my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing, through the only merits of Jesus Christ, my Saviour, to be made partaker of life everlasting." |
 "But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has always been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" —Charles Darwin, personal letter to W. Graham, July 3, 1881 (Francis Darwin, ed., The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin. New York: Basic, 1959, 1:285) |
 "The Christian religion is the religion of our country. From it are derived our prevalent notions of the character of God, the great moral governor of the universe. On its doctrines are founded the peculiarities of our free institutions." —William McGuffey, author of the McGuffey Reader. |
 "If we want to keep these freedoms, we may have to fight again. God forbid, but if we do, let's always fight to win...Face the flag, son... and thank God it's still there." —John Wayne, 1977 |
"God of our Fathers...may it be ever understood that our Liberty is under God and... to the extent that America honors Thee, wilt Thou bless America." —Peter Marshall, U.S. Senate Chaplain 1947) |
 “The patriot volunteer, fighting for country and his rights, makes the most reliable soldier on earth.” —Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson |
 “Let us cherish these sentiments, and extend this influence still more widely; in the full conviction, that that is the happiest society which partakes in the highest degree of the mild and peaceful spirit of Christianity.” —Daniel Webster, regarding the Pilgrims, 1820 |
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Note: for more outstanding quotations, please visit the American Minute. You can also find a wealth of Presidential Quotes in the book Treasury of Presidential Quotations available here on Jerry's Bookshelf. |
"Almighty God, we make our earnest prayer that thou wilt keep the United States in thy holy protection..." —George Washington
"America needs God more than God needs America. If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a Nation gone under” “We can’t have it both ways. We can’t expect God to protect us in a crisis and just leave Him over there on the shelf in our day-to-day living. I wonder if sometimes He isn’t waiting for us to wake up, He isn’t maybe running out of patience."—President Ronald Reagan (1984 & 1982)
“A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins.” — Ben Franklin
"In regard to this Great Book (The Bible), I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it, we would not know right from wrong." —President Abraham Lincoln (farewell at Springfield, II, February 11, 1861)
"The Bible carries with it the history of the creation, the fall and redemption of man, and discloses to him, in the infant born at Bethlehem, the legistlator and savior of the world." —John Quincy Adams, addressing the American Bible Society
"That book, sir, is the rock on which our republic rests." —Andrew Jackson on his deathbed referring to the Bible.
"Almost every man who by his life's work added to the sum of human achievement of which the race is proud has based his life work largely upon the teachings of the Bible..." — Theodore Roosevelt
"Experience has shown, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny." — Thomas Jefferson
"In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed... No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people." — Noah Webster, in the preface to his first Dictionary published April 14, 1828.
"The choice before us is plain: Christ or chaos, conviction or compromise, discipline or disintegration. I am rather tired of hearing about our rights... The time is come... to hear about responsibilities... America's future depends upon her accepting and demonstrating God's government." —Peter Marshall, U.S. Senate Chaplain 1947)
"I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization... Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour." — Prime Minister Winston Churchill, June 18, 1940 (Brittain's House of Commons)
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