“Let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
1790s, Farewell Address (1796)
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George Washington186
first President of the United States 1732–1799Related quotes
David Hume book A Treatise of Human Nature
Part 1, Section 1
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Book 3: Of morals
Eleftherios Venizelos (1864–1936) Greek politician
Source: [Gibbons, H. A., Venizelos, Modern Statesmen Series, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920, http://books.google.com/books?id=DVMlZtkx5bwC], p. 17
Simón Bolívar (1783–1830) Venezuelan military and political leader, South American libertador
As quoted in Rise of the Spanish-American Republics as Told in the Lives of their Liberators (1918) by William Spence Robertson, p. 239
The Angostura Address (1819)
John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States
Letter http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field(DOCID+@lit(dg004210)) to Zabdiel Adams (21 June 1776) <br class="br">1770s <br class="br">Context: Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, They may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty. They will only exchange Tyrants and Tyrannies.
“There is within us a moral instinct which forbids us to rejoice at the death of even an enemy.”
Henryk Sienkiewicz book Without Dogma
12 November
Without Dogma (1891)
Roberto Mangabeira Unger The Religion of the Future
Source: The Religion of the Future (2014), p. 385
African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher
Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 59.
Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States
1870s, Speech to the Society of the Army of Tennessee (1875)