Benjamin Rush Quotes.
Freedom can exist only in the society of knowledge. Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights.
Upon my return from the army to Baltimore in the winter of 1777, I sat next to John Adams in Congress, and upon my whispering to him and asking him if he thought we should succeed in our struggle with Great Britain, he answered me, “Yes-if we fear God and repent of our sins.”
I have alternately been called an Aristocrat and a Democrat. I am neither. I am a Christocrat.
Without religion, I believe that learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind.
Mothers and schools plant the seeds of nearly all the good and evil which exists in the world.
I do not believe that the Constitution was the offspring of inspiration, but I am as satisfied that it is as much the work of a Divine Providence as any of the miracles recorded in the Old and New Testament.
If we were to remove the Bible from public schools we would be wasting so much time punishing crimes and taking so little pains to prevent them.
Liberty without virtue would be no blessing to us.
Scandal dies sooner of itself, than we could kill it.
By renouncing the Bible, philosophers swing from their moorings upon all moral subjects..It is the only correct map of the human heart that ever has been published.
By withholding the knowledge of [the Scriptures] from children, we deprive ourselves of the best means of awakening moral sensibility in their minds.
Without Virtue there can be no liberty
Controversy is only dreaded by the advocates of error.
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.
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.
The American war is over, but this is far from being the case with the American Revolution.
The gospel of Jesus Christ prescribes the wisest rules for just conduct in every situation in life. Happy they who are enabled to obey them in all situations!
The Bible contains more knowledge necessary to man in his present state than any other book in the world.
Temperate, sincere, and intelligent inquiry and discussion are only to be dreaded by the advocates of error. The truth need not fear them.
The Bible, when not read in schools, is seldom read in any subsequent period of life…The Bible…should be read in our schools in preference to all other books because it contains the greatest portion of that kind of knowledge which is calculated to produce private and public happiness.
The great enemy of the salvation of man, in my opinion, never invented a more effective means of limiting Christianity from the world than by persuading mankind that it was improper to read the Bible at schools.
If moral precepts alone could have reformed mankind, the mission of the Son of God into all the world would have been unnecessary. The perfect morality of the gospel rests upon the doctrine which, though often controverted has never been refuted: I mean the vicarious life and death of the Son of God.
