Revolution Founding Fathers Quotes

Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives. - John Adams ~ David McCullough

By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion; and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed upon the same equal footing, and are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty. ~ Samuel Chase

Christianity, then, was in one sense the stone these builders of the American nation rejected, except for Benjamin Rush and Charles Carroll. Yet the other Founding Fathers, even as modern men, still held fast to much that was good from the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Jefferson's enthusiasm for the defense of reason, natural law, and the principle of subsidiarity is worthy of the best Christian thinkers. And there could be no better advice (properly understood) for any age than Franklin's "imitation of Jesus and Socrates, " for man needs humbly to live both the life of the spirit and the intellect. But it was the most unlikely of all of them, the Caesarist Alexander Hamilton, who, laying down his life for an enemy, proved that the lives and thought of the Founding Fathers - even in the heady days of the American revolution - could be completely transformed. Obedient to Christ's command of absolute love, Hamilton died very much in the manner of those other and greater figures of destiny, those who build the futures of two worlds, the only true revolutionaries - the saints. ~ Donald D'Elia

May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof. ~ David McCullough

No I'm not. It might benefit you to go back and have a look at what some of our founding fathers really believed, instead of relying so much on what people these days tell you they believed. ~ Harper Lee

I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life, I absenteed myself from Christian assemblies. ~ Benjamin Franklin

They'd drink like men, like their fathers and uncles, like George fucking Washington ... ~ Claire Vaye Watkins

The consequences arising from the continual accumulation of public debts in other countries ought to admonish us to prevent their growth in our own. ~ John Adams

The Founding Fathers would be sorry to see that America had become so divided and factionalized. ~ Michael Beschloss

Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote ... that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country. ~ Samuel Adams

Without religion, I believe that learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind. ~ Benjamin Rush

What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not. ~ James Madison

And so this added consideration - that she never get pregnant - contributed to the moderation of their coupling, which was almost always managed under conditions harsh enough to win the approval of New England's founding fathers ~ John Irving

I believe that only through a truly educated citizenry can the ideals that inspired the Founding Fathers of our nation be preserved and perpetuated. ~ David O. McKay

There is no quarrel between science and spirituality. I often hear people of science trying to use it to prove the nonexistence of the spiritual, but I simply can't see a chasm in between the two. What is spiritual produces what is scientific and when science is used to disprove the spiritual, it's always done with the intent to do so; a personal contempt. As a result, scientists today only prove their inferiority to the great founding fathers of the sciences who were practitioners of alchemy. Today's science is washed-out and scrubbed-down and robbed of everything mystical and spiritual, a knowledge born of contempt and discontent. Or perhaps, there are a few who wish to keep those secrets to themselves and serve everyone else up with a tasteless version of science and the idiots of today blindly follow their equally blind leaders. ~ C. JoyBell C.

But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Discipline is the soul of an army. ~ George Washington

There are two visions of America. One precedes our founding fathers and finds its roots in the harshness of our Puritan past. It is very suspicious of freedom, uncomfortable with diversity hostile to science, unfriendly to reason, contemptuous of personal autonomy. It sees America as a religious nation. It views patriotism as allegiance to God. It secretly adores coercion and conformity. Despite our constitution, despite the legacy of the Enlightenment, it appeals to millions of Americans and threatens our freedom. ~ Sherwin Wine

Our example - and commitment - to freedom has changed the world. But along with the genius of our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and our Bill of Rights, is the equal genius of our economic system. Our Founding Fathers endeavored to create a moral and just society like no other in history, and out of that grew a moral and just economic system the likes of which the world had never seen. Our freedom, what it means to be an American, has been defined and sustained by the liberating power of the free enterprise system. ~ Mitt Romney

I want you teabaggers out there to understand one thing: while you idolize the Founding Fathers and dress up like them, and smell like them, I think it's pretty clear that the Founding Fathers would have hated your guts. And what's more, you would've hated them. They were everything you despise. They studied science, read Plato, hung out in Paris and thought the Bible was mostly bulls**t. ~ Bill Maher

Our Founding Fathers were proud that Americans were trusted with arms because they knew that only when people are armed could they truly be thought of as free citizens. And that's where the circle closes. Those who want to deprive you of your right to keep and bear arms are intending to deprive you of your freedom, period. Like the criminals their policies encourage, these elitists know that it is always best to disarm victims before you enslave them. ~ Charley Reese

We should not be surprised that the Founding Fathers didn't foresee everything, when we see that the current Fathers hardly ever foresee anything. ~ Henry Steele Commager

From the beginning, Judeo-Christian principles have been the foundation for American public dialogue and government policy. They serve as the solid basis for political activism in support of a better socioeconomic environment. Found in American homes, truth from the Hebrew Christian Bible has enabled individual liberty to prevail over secular empires because it is a practical message about reality from man's Creator.
In their quest for liberty, Americans focused upon the conspicuously self-evident "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." It is the governing character of these principles (laws), such as humility, the Golden Rule, and the Ten Commandments, that leads to success. This is the sure foundation upon which man's right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" rests. Called "virtue" by America's Founding Fathers, the impartial and divine element frees man to do what is right. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Cor. 3:17). ~ David A. Norris

I have come to revere words like "democracy" and "freedom," the right to vote, the incomprehensibly beautiful origins of my country, and the grandeur of the extraordinary vision of the founding fathers. Do I not see America's flaws? Of course I do. But I now can honor her basic, incorruptible virtues, the ones that let me walk the streets screaming my ass off that my country had no idea what it was doing in South Vietnam ... I have come to a conclusion about my country that I knew then in my bones, but lacked the courage to act on: America is a good enough country to die for even when she is wrong. ~ Pat Conroy

One popular defense of the Founding Fathers says they were simply men of their time, flawed idealists for whom 'that was the culture then.' But in fact, they were not men of their time. The Founding Fathers were men of their color (white) of their status (wealthy) of their descent (European) of their time.
To say that the Founding Fathers were men of their time defines time according to them. It legitimizes their place at the top of the world--the origin of popular history--even if the leaders of other nations were more democratic and fair-handed. ~ Israel Morrow

[The Founding Fathers] were not advocates for a monolithic notion of "God and Country," as promoters of a Christian America would now have us believe. They were precisely the opposite: the very prototypes, in fact, of the East Coast intellectuals we are always being warned against by today's religious right. ~ Brooke Allen

The Bible and its teachings helped form the basis for the Founding Fathers' abiding belief in the inalienable rights of the individual, rights which they found implicit in the Bible's teachings of the inherent worth and dignity of each individual. This same sense of man patterned the convictions of those who framed the English system of law inherited by our own Nation, as well as the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. ~ Ronald Reagan

The Founding Fathers are always spinning in their graves over something, as is Ronald Reagan, or FDR. Edward R. Murrow is a perennial grave spinner in the news business (though in fact, Murrow was cremated). ~ Mark Leibovich

We have not only a Hindu prayer being offered in the Senate, we have a Muslim member of the House of Representatives now, Keith Ellison from Minnesota. Those are changes
and they are not what was envisioned by the Founding Fathers. You know, the Lord can cause the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike. ~ Bill Sali

The reality is that the founding fathers were land speculators. The fact was that you couldn't vote in this country if you did not own land, and that was basically you had to be a white man who owned land. Now how did they get that land? They basically had to steal it from someone, and that would be probably the Indians. And so most of the initial founding fathers were, while they may have had some really nice ideas about democracy, they had a lot of issues with people of color. They had a lot of issues with people who held things that they coveted. ~ Winona LaDuke

A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing. ~ Alexander Hamilton

[V]irtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. ~ George Washington

Franklin was the best known of the Founding Fathers. His death could not go without some sort of official notice. The House of Representatives, after listening to a brief tribute by James Madison, voted to wear badges of mourning for two months and then got on with business. ~ Edmund Morgan

To contract new debts is not the way to pay old ones. ~ George Washington

The act of our creation is equal for all of us. The results of our creation are not. The goal of our Founding Fathers was to treat everyone equally under the law, and as such, provide for equality of opportunity, not results. ~ A.E. Samaan

In the summer of 1776 our Founding Fathers sought to secure our independence and the liberties that remain the foundation of our nation today. ~ Doc Hastings

Scarcely was I arrived at fifteen years of age, when, after having doubted in turn of different tenets, according as I found them combated in the different books that I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Government is necessary for our survival. We need government in order to survive. The Founding Fathers created a special place for government. It is called the Constitution. ~ Michael Badnarik

The simple fact is we do not live in a democracy. Certainly not the kind our Founding Fathers intended. We live in a corporate dictatorship represented by, and beholden to, no single human being you can reason with or hold responsible for anything. ~ Steven Van Zandt

From the 5th grade through the 4th year of college, our young people are being indoctrinated with a Marxist philosophy and I am fearful of the harvest. The younger generation is further to the left than most adults realize. The old concepts of our Founding Fathers are scoffed and jeered at by young moderns whose goals appear to be the destruction of integrity and virtue, and the glorification of pleasure, thrills, and self-indulgence. ~ Ezra Taft Benson

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievance
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Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. ~ The Founding Fathers

The federal government is far larger than the Founding Fathers ever intended it to be. We have racked up over $16 trillion of debt through wasteful spending, and it is time that we cut that waste and start reducing the size of our government. ~ Matt Salmon

The Second Amendment is timeless for our Founders grasped that self-defense is three-fold: every free individual must protect themselves against the evil will of the man, the mob and the state. ~ Tiffany Madison

Most of the founding fathers, sympathetic with and influenced by the European Enlightenment, saw religion - natural religion, that is - as a potential good, but with equal clarity they saw the religions of existing institutions and religions based on a fixed scriptural revelation as meddlesome, wrong-headed and hopelessly obsolete. ~ Edwin Gaustad