A Quote by George Washington

In his address of 19 September 1796, given as he prepared to leave office, President George Washington spoke about the importance of morality to the country's well-being: 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. . . . Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its virtue?

George Washington

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Quote Author

George Washington
American - President
February 22, 1732 - December 14, 1799

Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

George Washington

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim tribute to patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness - these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. . . . reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.

George Washington

Let us with Caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.

George Washington

John Adams, second president of the United States, wrote that our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. George Washington warned us never to indulge the supposition 'that morality can be maintained without religion.'

Joe Lieberman

Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation deserts the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in the Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the opposition, 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.

George Washington

Everywhere the tendency has been to separate religion from morality, to set them in opposition even. But a religion without morality is a superstition and a curse; and anything like an adequate and complete morality without religion is impossible. The only salvation for man is in the union of the two as Christianity unites them.

Mark Hopkins

One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. So now people assume that religion and morality have a necessary connection. But the basis of morality is really very simple and doesn't require religion at all.

Arthur C. Clarke

Piety, religion, and morality are intimately connected with the well being of that state, and indispensable to the administration of civil justice.

Joseph Story

Behaving morally because of a hope of reward or a fear of punishment is not morality. Morality is not bribery or threats. Religion is bribery and threats. Humans have morality. We don't need religion.

Penn Jillette

Religion gets its morality from us. We don't get our morality from religion.

Christopher Hitchens

Morality must always precede and accompany religion, and yet religion is much more than morality.

Henry Ward Beecher

In France, religion had been considered the enemy of liberty, but in America, as George Washington expressed it, religion and morality were the 'twin pillars of freedom.'

D. James Kennedy

Religion without morality is a superstition and a curse, and morality without religion is impossible.

Mark Hopkins

A free thinker used to be a man who had been educated on ideas of religion, law, morality, and had arrived at free thought by virtue of his own struggle and toil; but now a new type of born freethinker has been appearing, who’ve never even heard that there have been laws of morality and religion, and that there are authorities, but who simply grow up with negative ideas about everything, that is savages.

Leo Tolstoy

See, then, how powerful religion is; it commands the heart, it commands the vitals. Morality,--that comes with a pruning-knife, and cuts off all sproutings, all wild luxuriances; but religion lays the axe to the root of the tree. Morality looks that the skin of the apple be fair; but religion searcheth to the very core.