Quote #130: on the link between faith and works

"In one thing we agree that he who feareth God, and worketh righteousness shall be accepted of him and his Faith cannot be wrong whose life is in the right."

- Abigail Adams (1744-1818), American founder, Letter to Catherine Adams, April 15, 1818, quoted in The Founders on Religion:  A Book of Quotations, edited by James H. Hutson (Princeton:  2005), pg. 90.

Quote #129: the problem with the religious right

"Adherents of the new religious right reject the separation of politics and religion, but they bring no spiritual insights to politics."

- Christopher Lasch (1931-1994), American historian and social critic.

Quote #128: on the need for religion in society

"The principle of liberty and equality, if coupled with mere selfishness, will make men only devils, each trying to be independent that he may fight only for his own interest. And here is the need of religion and its power, to bring in the principle of benevolence and love to men."

- John Randolph of Roanoke (1733-1833), Congressman and leader of the National Republicans Party.

Quote #127: on democracy

"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy."

- Abraham Lincoln (1808-1865), lawyer, politician, and first Republican president of the United States.

Quote #126: on the sanctity of private property

"So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even for the general good of the whole community."

- Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780), Commentary on the Laws of England.

Quote #125: on fighting for justice

"Power never concedes anything without a demand. It never has and it never will." 


- Frederick Douglass (1808-1895), former slave, African-American civil rights activist, abolitionist and American political philosopher.

Quote #124: on justice

"The precepts of the law are these: to live honestly, to injure no one, and to give every man his due. The study of law consists of two branches, law public and law private. The former relates to the welfare of the Roman State; the latter to the advantage of the individual citizen. Of private law then we may say that it is of threefold origin, being collected from the precepts of nature, from those of the law of nations, or from those of the civil law of Rome."

- Justinian (483-565), emperor of Rome, in his Institutes of Roman Law.

Quote #123: on virtue

"The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American writer and philosopher.

Quote #122: on ideas

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

- Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC), ancient Greek philosopher and tutor to Alexander the Great.

Mother Teresa on abortion

"I always say one thing: If a mother can kill her own child, then what is left of the West to be destroyed? It is difficult to explain , but it is just that."

Mother Teresa