This is a collection of assorted quotations from mostly famous people, past and present, on the subject of how to live a righteous life – which is, of course, a life of love based on faith – consistent with Jesus Christ and the Bible. I am adding to the collection over time, almost always placing the most recent quotation at the top.
***
Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865; 56 yrs)
***
The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government.
Joseph Story (1779-1845; 65 yrs), associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1812 to 1845. Source: Bill Federer website post (This post includes more interesting quotes from Story and others besides this one.)
This statement demonstrates that “separation of church and state” meant something vastly different in early America than it means in modern America. “Freedom of religion” has come to mean “freedom from religion.” At its founding, America practiced a secularism that meant no single Protestant denomination would prevail as it had in England; but that America was a thoroughly Protestant Christian nation was indisputable. In the current day, however, America practices a secularism that is increasingly hostile to Christianity in all its forms. For its entire history, America has used the phrase “separation of church and state,” but its meaning is dramatically different from what it used to be. In the public square, both sides are using the same terms…but defining them in different, even opposite, ways. We’re living not just in Sodom, but also in the tower of Babel.
***
The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.
G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)
***
George Washington Wanted Christianity Even More Than Patriotism
While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished Character of [a] Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished Character of [a] Christian.
George Washington (1732-1799), 1st president of the United States. Source: The Writings of Washington, pp. 342-343.
***
“Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
C. T. Studd (1860-1931) British cricketer and missionary
Only what’s done for Christ will last.”
***
John Adams on the Necessity of Morality and Religion in America
…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 was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams (1735-1826), 2nd president of the United States (1797-1801). Taken from “To the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts,” October 11, 1798. Source
US President Calvin Coolidge said something similar: “The foundations of our society and government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.” (Quotations about the Bible)
***
I did not expect to find a lot of good LBJ quotes on Jesus Christ and the Bible, and, for sure, the pickings were thin. That said, this quote from his 1965 inaugural address has proven true – irrespective of whether he believed it or even understood it.
If we fail now…we will have forgotten that democracy rests on faith.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973), 36th president of the United States, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1965.
The people I hear crying loudest about “democracy” today are people who think the First Amendment to the Constitution enshrines freedom from religion rather than freedom of religion. They demand a democracy that does not rest on faith. People like this have won the culture war and this is why we no longer have a functioning democracy.
***
These are the first and last words of President John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address in 1961. You’ll recognize “Ask not what your country can do for you…,” but how can anyone remember the parts I underlined when no one ever talks about them?
We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom–symbolizing an end as well as a beginning–signifying renewal as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forbears prescribed nearly a century and three-quarters ago. The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe–the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.
***
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), 35th president of the United States, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961 (full text of the speech)
***
Apparently, even Machiavelli knew what was up.
Where the fear of God is wanting, there the country will come to ruin.
Niccolo Machiavelli, Discourses 1.11
***
I am not the man I ought to be, I am not the man I wish to be, and I am not the man I hope to be, but by the grace of God, I am not the man I used to be.
John Newton (1725-1807), former slave trader, then abolitionist, preacher, and composer of the hymn Amazing Grace
***
Men Have Forgotten God…
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Russian novelist and historian who had been imprisoned for eight years and then forced into exile for three more because he criticized the Soviet government – the government that kept Russia in the grip of communism for 70 years. Gaining a measure of freedom in 1956, he began publishing his writings about the brutality of daily life under the totalitarian Soviet regime. His writings brought him fame and admiration in Russia and around the world. In 1983, upon being recognized for his long and courageous stand, Solzhenitsyn gave a speech in London explaining the rise of atheistic communism in his country. That speech began with the following haunting words.
Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008), emphasis added. Source: transcript of the full speech
As Russia forgot God and suffered the consequences, so America has forgotten God and is beginning to suffer the consequences. Men, our nation has been hijacked by pirates but God can and will save your family through Christ. He is an ark in the flood.
***
Harry Truman Said America Was a Christian Nation
Lots of people know that Harry Truman said we were a Christian nation. Here’s the context in which he said it.
As the chosen leader of the people of the United States I am privileged to pledge full faith to you once again to work with Your Holiness and with every agency of good the world over for an enduring peace. An enduring peace can be built only upon Christian principles. To such a consummation we dedicate all our resources, both spiritual and material, remembering always that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it.
Your Holiness, this is a Christian Nation. More than a half century ago that declaration was written into the decrees of the highest court in this land. It is not without significance that the valiant pioneers who left Europe to establish settlements here, at the very beginning of their colonial enterprises, declared their faith in the Christian religion and made ample provision for its practice and for its support. The story of the Christian missionaries who in earliest days endured perils, hardship–even death itself in carrying the message of Jesus Christ to untutored savages is one that still moves the hearts of men.
As a Christian Nation our earnest desire is to work with men of good will everywhere to banish war and the causes of war from the world whose Creator desired that men of every race and in every clime should live together in peace, good will and mutual trust. Freedom of conscience, ordained by the Fathers of our Constitution to all who live under the flag of the United States, has been a bulwark of national strength, a source of happiness, from the establishment of our Nation to this day.
Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), 33rd president of the United States, in a 1947 letter to Pope Pius XII. Emphasis added. (source)
Though this letter was written to the pope, it was also written for public consumption in the US and around the world. Truman, by the way, was not a Catholic; he was a Baptist. He wrote elsewhere, “I’m a Baptist because I think that sect gives the common man the shortest and most direct approach to God.”
It should go without saying that no candidate for US president who thought and spoke about America this way today would be elected…or even be taken seriously as a candidate. Harry Truman was still president when I was born. That’s how much a country can change in one lifetime.
***
It wasn’t that long ago American presidents spoke this way.
[W]here we have been the truest and most consistent in obeying [the Bible’s] precepts, we have attained the greatest measure of contentment and prosperity.
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd president of the United States, in a 1935 radio broadcast.
***
I believe that the next half century will determine if we will advance the cause of Christian civilization or revert to the horrors of brutal paganism…The choice between the two is upon us.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), 26th president of the United States, in 1909 (emphasis added)
What would he say now?
***
George Washington’s Farewell
George Washington warned us in his farewell address.
With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles.
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.
And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.
Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all; religion and morality enjoin this conduct, and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it?
George Washington‘s comments on religion in his “Farewell Address to the People of the United States,” first published September 19, 1796, emphasis (italics) added.
***
Jesus is either Lord of all…or He’s not Lord at all.
Unknown
***
A Bible Reader's Website 