Samuel Adams - "A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader... If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security."
Samuel Adams - "How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!"
Samuel Adams - "Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavors to renovate the age, by impressing the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys and girls, of inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity and universal philanthropy, and, in subordination to these great principles, the love of their country; of instructing them in the art of self-government without which they never can act a wise part in the government of societies, great or small; in short, of leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system."
Samuel Adams - "The right to freedom being the gift of the Almighty... The rights of the colonists as Christians... may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institution of The Great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament."
Samuel Chase - "Religion is of general and public concern, and on its support depend, in great measure, the peace and good order of government, the safety and happiness of the people. By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion; and all sects and denominations of Christianity are placed upon the same equal footing, and are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty."
Samuel Gordon - "Philosophically there must be a hell. That is the name for the place where God is not; for the place where they will gather together who insist on leaving God out. God out! There can be no worse hell than that! God away! Man held back by no restraints!"
Samuel Gordon - "The heart of God hungers to redeem the world."
Samuel Gordon - "We cannot know a man's mental processes. THis is surely true, that if in the very last half-twinkling of an eye a man look up towards God longingly, that look is the turning of the will to God. And that is quite enough."
Sara Williams - "The song goes, 'I say tomato, you say tomatoe, why can't we just get along?' but I say tomato, you say potato, one of us is wrong."
Sara Williams - "You know that saying, 'not talking about ... would be like ignoring the elephant in the room'? Well, not talking about God is like shutting your eyes and ignoring the dark."
Saul Bellow - "Everyone needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door."
Senate Judiciary Committee report by Mr. Badger in 1853 - "The clause speaks of 'an establishment of religion'. What is meant by that expression? It referred, without doubt, to that establishment which existed in the mother-country... endowment at the public expense, peculiar privileges to its members, or disadvantages or penalties upon those who should reject its doctrines or belong to other communities - such law would be a 'law respecting an establishment of religion...' They intended, by this amendment, to prohibit 'an establishment of religion' such as the English Church presented, or any thing like it. But they had no fear or jealousy of religion itself, nor did they wish to see us an irreligious people... They did not intend to spread over all the public authorities and the whole public action of the nation the dead and revolting spectacle of atheistic apathy. Not so had the battles of the Revolution been fought and the deliberations of the Revolutionary Congress been conducted... We are a Christian people... not because the law demands it, not to gain exclusive benefits or to avoid legal disabilities, but from choice and education; and in a land thus universally Christian, what is to be expected, what desired, but that we shall pay due regard to Christianity."
Simon Greenleaf - "All that Christianity asks of men...is that they would be consistent with themselves; that they would treat its evidence as they treat the evidence of other things; and that they would try and judge its actors and witnesses, as they would deal with their fellow men, when testifying to human affairs and actions, in human tribunals. Let the witnesses be compared with themselves, with each other, and with surrounding facts and circumstances; and let their testimony be sifted, as if it were given in a court of justice, on the side of the adverse party, the witness being subjected to rigorous cross-examination. The result, it is confidently believed, will be an undoubting conviction of their integrity, ability, and truth."
Simon Greenleaf - "If a close examination of the evidences of Christianity may be expected of one class of men more than another, it would seem incumbent upon lawyers who make the law of evidence one of our peculiar studies. Our profession leads us to explore the mazes of falsehood, to detect its artifices, to pierce its thickest veils, to follow and expose its sophistries, to compare the statements of different witnesses with severity, to discover truth and separate it from error."
Simon Greenleaf - "On the Divine character of the Bible, I think no man who deals honestly with his own mind and heart can entertain a reasonable doubt. For myself, I must say, that having for many years made the evidences of Christianity the subject of close study, the result has been a firm and increasing conviction of the authenticity and plenary inspiration of the Bible. It is indeed the Word of God."
Simon Greenleaf - "The religion of Jesus Christ... not only solicits the grave attention of all, to whom its doctrines are presented, but it demands their cordial belief as a matter of vital concernment. These are no ordinary claims; and it seems hardly possible for a rational being to regard them with even a subdued interest; much less to treat them with mere indifference and contempt."
Smith Wigglesworth - "Great faith is the product of great fights. Great testimonies are the outcome of great tests. Great triumphs can only come out of great trials."
Soren Kirkegaard - God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful; he makes saints out of sinners.
Soren Kirkegaard - Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
Soren Kirkegaard - Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.
Soren Kirkegaard - "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid."
Soren Kirkegaard - Personality is only ripe when a man has made the truth his own.
Soren Kirkegaard - Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.
Stephen Jay Gould - "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology."
Steven Ambrose - "It is through history that we learn who we are and how we got that way, why and how we changed, why the good sometimes prevailed and sometimes did not."
Steven Ambrose - "The measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience; but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
Steven Levine - "If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?"