America was founded by people who believe that God is their Rock of safety. — Ronald Reagan
Even the Founding Fathers of the U.S., nowadays considered the model of a democracy, were strictly opposed to it. Without a single exception, they thought of democracy as nothing but mob-rule. — Hans-Hermann Hoppe
American government was founded on a belief and a faith in God and in doing what is right and just. — Ginny Brown-Waite
The Founders knew that a democracy would lead to some kind of tyranny. The term democracy appears in none of our Founding documents. Their vision for us was a Republic and limited government. — Walter E. Williams
Government itself is founded upon the great doctrine of the consent of the governed, and has its cornerstone in the memorable principle that men are endowed with inalienable rights. — Leland Stanford
Most of the founders of this country had day jobs for years. They were not career politicians. ... We need leaders with experience in the real world, not experience in the phony world of politics. — Thomas Sowell
Ours is the only country deliberately founded on a good idea. — John Gunther
The Founders warned that a free society depends on a virtuous and moral people. The current crisis reflects that their concerns were justified. — Ron Paul
The founding document of the United States of America acknowledges the Lordship of Jesus Christ because we are a Christian nation. — Pat Robertson
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. — Abraham Lincoln
He who made all men hath made the truths necessary to human happiness obvious to all. Our forefathers opened the Bible to all. — Samuel Adams
Most Americans aren't the sort of citizens the Founding Fathers expected; they are contented serfs. Far from being active critics of government, they assume that its might makes it right. — Joseph Sobran
For my part, I sincerely esteem the Constitution, a system which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests. — Alexander Hamilton
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed — Walter E. Williams
We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. — Alexander Hamilton
Anti-religion Founding Fathers Quotes
Those who live by mystery & charlatanerie, fearing you would render them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy - the most sublime and benevolent, but most perverted system that ever shone on man - endeavored to crush your well-earned & well-deserved fame. — Thomas Jefferson
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. — Thomas Jefferson
I am opposed to any form of tyranny over the mind of man. — Thomas Jefferson
You'll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.
The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. — Thomas Jefferson
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. — James Madison
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. — Thomas Jefferson
I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.
... happily the Government of the United States... gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance. — George Washington
Question with boldness even the existence of a god. — Thomas Jefferson
The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion. — Thomas Paine
I can't tell Black people to fight a war that is Israel's war. What kind of leader will you be, or should I be, to allow these babies Black, white and brown, to fight Israel's war, because Zionists dominate the government of the United States of America and her banking system. — Louis Farrakhan
Christian Founding Fathers Quotes
Resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual… Continue steadfast and, with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us. — John Hancock
The only foundation for . . . a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments. — Benjamin Rush
Let us by wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties. — James Monroe
You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.
July 4th ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion. — John Adams
Religion and morality are the essential pillars of civil society. — George Washington
My heart trembles when I reflect that God is just — Thomas Jefferson
Without Virtue there can be no liberty — Benjamin Rush
The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God, like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs. — Thomas Jefferson
The propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained... — George Washington
Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ. — James Madison
Our Founding Fathers Quotes
Our heavenly Father understands our disappointment, suffering, pain, fear, and doubt. He is always there to encourage our hearts and help us understand that He's sufficient for all of our needs. When I accepted this as an absolute truth in my life, I found that my worrying stopped. — Charles Stanley
The path of progress is seldom smooth. New things are often found hard to do. Our fathers found them so. We find them so. But are we not made better for the effort and scarifice? — William McKinley
The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. s with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.
You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence. — Charles Austin Beard
[Our Constitution] is an instrument for the people to restrain the government. — Patrick Henry
The rights essential to happiness. . . . We claim them from a higher source - from the King of kings and Lord of all the earth. — John Dickinson
I found that I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - thing I had no words for.
Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism. — Barry Goldwater
Congress has no power to make any religious establishments. — Roger Sherman
Coercion by government, the main fear of our founding fathers, is now its most common attribute. — Philip K. Howard
The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die. — George Washington
Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world. — Voltaire
Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. — Abraham Lincoln
Hold dear to your parents for it is a scary and confusing world without them.
Religion is the only solid Base of morals and that Morals are the only possible Support of free governments. — Gouverneur Morris
The only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government is the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible. — Benjamin Rush
We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus! — John Adams
Don't lose yourself just because you found somebody
I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning. — Benjamin Franklin
America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of the Holy Scripture. — Woodrow Wilson
Mystery is made a convenient Cover for absurdity. — John Adams
It is the duty of every true Deist to vindicate the moral justice of God against the evils of the Bible. — Thomas Paine
Us Founding Fathers Quotes
The Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms. — Samuel Adams
All might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they should. — Samuel Adams
Watch you thoughts, for they become words. Watch you words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for the become you character. And watch your character, for it becomes your destiny. What we think, we become. My father always said that. And I think I am fine.
We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. — Thomas Jefferson
Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. — Thomas Jefferson
If ever again our nation stumbles upon unfunded paper, it shall surely be like death to our body politic. This country will crash. — George Washington
One of the greatest thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.
I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery. — George Washington
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. — Joseph Story
If our Founding Fathers wanted us to care about the rest of the world, they wouldn't have declared their independence from it. — Stephen Colbert
The rich will strive to establish their dominion and enslave the rest. They
always did...they always will. They will have the same effect here as
elsewhere, if we do not, by the power of government, keep them in their proper
spheres. — Gouverneur Morris
A candle loses nothing when it lights another candle. — Thomas Jefferson
If you haven't found it yet, keep looking.
Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos. — John Marshall
Genius is nothing but a greater aptitude for patience. — Benjamin Franklin
All Americans mourn the passing of the author of the Declaration of Independence, George Jefferson. — Andy Borowitz
There is no passion to be found playing small, in settling for a life that is less than the one your are capable of living.
We should make the poor uncomfortable and kick them out of poverty. — Benjamin Franklin
The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived. — John Quincy Adams
Isn't it somewhat remarkable that we can go back a a few hundred years and find no shortage of quotations from our founding fathers warning us against the dangers of democracy, yet today teachers and politicians use the word as if it were an offering of gold. — Neal Boortz
The government of the United States of America has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims. — John Adams
Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. — George Washington
It is the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins. — Benjamin Franklin
Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion. — John Adams
Outlawing religion form the political arena is not what the Founding Fathers intended when they drafted the First Amendment. We do a grave disservice to our country by removing the influence of religion. If you separate God from the public arena, inevitably you separate good from our government. — Bill Bright
What is it the Bible teaches us? -- rapine, cruelty, and murder. — Thomas Paine
I never liked the Hierarchy of the Church-an equality in the teacher of Religion, and a dependence on the people, are republican sentiments-but if the Clergy combine, they will have their influence on Government — Rufus King
Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good. — John Adams
But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed? — John Adams
I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life, I absenteed myself from Christian assemblies. — Benjamin Franklin
Founding Fathers Religious Quotes
Without God there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first, the most basic, expression of Americanism. Thus, the founding fathers of America saw it, and thus with God's help, it will continue to be. — Dwight D. Eisenhower
The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God. — John Adams
[All religious sects] dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight; and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversion of the duperies in which they live. — Thomas Jefferson
The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity — John Adams
Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can exist apart from religious principle. — George Washington
Let us with Caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. — George Washington
It is evident from their writings that the Founding Fathers would never have tolerated the separation that we have embraced today. They knew that religious principles provided morality and self-control - the lifeblood for the survival of any self-governing community. — David Barton
This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it. — John Adams
It is impossible to account for the creation of the universe without the agency of a Supreme Being. — George Washington
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. — Thomas Jefferson
American Founding Fathers Quotes
I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president - not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans. — Caroline Kennedy
The soul of man is immortal and imperishable. — Plato
In view of the tide of religiosity engulfing a once secular republic it is refreshing to be reminded by Freethinkers that free thought and skepticism are robustly in the American tradition. After all the Founding Fathers began by omitting God from the American Constitution. — Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing. — Thomas Paine
Our country was founded on a distrust of government. Our founding fathers gave power to the people to keep an eye on government. So when politicians say, 'Trust me,' they're actually being very un-American. — David Duchovny
Here is my Creed. I believe in one God, the Creator of the Universe. That He governs it by His Providence. That He ought to be worshipped. — Benjamin Franklin
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. — Thomas Jefferson
Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption — James Madison
Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years? — John Adams
Franklin may . . . be considered one of the founding fathers of American democracy, since no democratic government can last long without conciliation and compromise. — Samuel Eliot Morison
Founding Fathers Of America Quotes
The 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? — Thomas Jefferson
The Founding Fathers of America never intended to stop people expressing their faith in the public square. But unfortunately that is the way it is happened. — John Lennox
For an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. — Thomas Jefferson
Those who enjoy the blessings of liberty under a divinely inspired constitution should promote morality, and they should practice what the Founding Fathers called civic virtue. — Dallin H. Oaks
I believe ... that the soul of man is immortal and will be treated with justice in another life, respecting its conduct in this. — Benjamin Franklin
The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend to all the happiness of man. — Thomas Jefferson
The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy. — George Washington
Christianity is the only true and perfect religion. — Benjamin Rush
Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean Hell. — John Adams
Democracy is something America has never really practiced. Because the Founding Fathers hated two things: monarchy and democracy. They wanted a republic, a replica of the Roman or Venetian republics. They didn't even like the etymology of the word "democracy." — Gore Vidal
The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men. — Samuel Adams
When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil. — Thomas Jefferson
Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. — Thomas Jefferson
In the United States, the Constitution is a health chart left by the Founding Fathers which shows whether or not the body politic is in good health. If the national body is found to be in poor health, the Founding Fathers also left a prescription for the restoration of health called the Declaration of Independence. — Dick Gregory
Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. — Noah Webster
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
I was born an only child in Vienna, Austria. My father found hours to sit by me by the library fire and tell fairy stories. — Hedy Lamarr
My dad was a complicated man. He was a huge racist, my dad, but he still tried to be a good father, you know? Like, he would tell me that Santa Claus was black - that way, when I found out he didn't exist, it wouldn't be that big a let down. — Anthony Jeselnik
What was silent in the father speaks in the son, and often I found in the son the unveiled secret of the father. — Friedrich Nietzsche
The Law found more than it lost when Christ said, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven’ (Matthew 5:44-45). This most important commandment summarizes in a word the universal discipline of patience, since it does not allow us to do evil even to people who deserve it. — Tertullian
Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks. — Thomas Jefferson
In Conclusion
Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of founding fathers quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about founding fathers to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.
Citation
Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of founding fathers quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.