Topic: Virtue, Matches 25 quotes.

Believe it or not, at one time the very notion of government had less to do with politics than with virtue. According to James Madison, often referred to as the father of the Constitution: “We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of the government far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.” (Russ Walton, Biblical Principles of Importance to Godly Christians [New Hampshire: Plymouth Foundation, 1984], p. 361.)

George Washington agreed with his colleague James Madison. Said Washington: “Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle” (James D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897, published by authority of Congress, 1899, vol. 1, p. 220).

Nearly a hundred years later, Abraham Lincoln responded to a question about which side God was on during the Civil War with his profound insight: “I am not at all concerned about that, for I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord’s side.” (Abraham Lincoln’s Stories and Speeches, J. B. McClure, ed. [Chicago: Rhodes and McClure Publishing Co., 1896], pp. 185-86.)

Madison, Washington, and Lincoln all understood that democracy cannot possibly flourish in a moral vacuum, and that organized religion plays an important role in preserving and maintaining public morality. Indeed, John Adams, another of America’s founding fathers, insisted: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion” (John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles E Adams, ed., 1854).

Source: Elder M. Russell Ballard
Address given 5 July 1992 at the Freedom Festival at Provo, UT.

Topics: Government, Purpose; Morality; Virtue

Earlier, in his first inaugural, Washington said: “There exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness . . . we ought to be no less persuaded that 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.”

Significantly, the Senate replied to Washington’s Inaugural, saying: “We feel, sir, the force and acknowledge the justness of the observation that the foundations of our national policy should be lain in private morality. If individuals be not influenced by moral principles, it is in vain to look for public virtue.” (Thomas G. West, “The Rule of Law in the Federalist,” in Saving the Revolution: The Federalist Papers and the American Founding, ed. Charles R. Kesler [New York: The Free Press, 1987], 166-67.)

Source: Neal A. Maxwell
Address given 4 July 1993 at the Freedom Festival at Provo, UT.

Topics: Morality; Virtue

As piety, religion and morality have a happy influence on the minds of men, in their public as well as private transactions, you will not think it unseasonable . . . to bring to your remembrance the great importance of encouraging our university, town schools, and other seminaries of education, that our children and youth while they are engaged in the pursuit of useful science, may have their minds impressed with a strong sense of the duties they owe to their God, their instructions, and each other, so that when they arrive to a state of manhood, and take a part in any public transactions, their hearts having been deeply impressed in the course of their education with the moral feelings—such feelings may continue and have their due weight through the whole of their future lives.

Source: Samuel Adams

Topics: Morality; Virtue

Among the most important terms used in this new language of the Republic were “moral sense” and “virtue.” Thomas Jefferson, for example, believed that if moral sense and personal virtue had not been God-given within the human being, then the building of any republic—especially the one we enjoy today—would simply have been impossible.

According to Jefferson, “passions and appetites are parts of human nature,” but so are “reason and moral sense.“17 “It would have been inconsistent [by God] in [the very act of] creation,” he insisted, “to have found man for [life in a] social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of [that] society.“18 “I believe that it is instinct[ive], and innate, that the moral sense is as much a part of our [personal] constitution as that of feeling, seeing, or hearing. A wise Creator must have seen [this as] necessary in [a being] destined to live [together] in society.“19

17. C. E Adams, Writings of John Adams, vol. 6, p. 115.

18. Lester J. Cappon, ed., The Adams-Jefferson Letters (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959), p. 388.

19. Ibid., p. 492.

Source: Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
Address given 30 June 1996 at the Freedom Festival at Provo, UT.

Topics: Morality; Virtue

In the sincere observances of the principles of true religion and virtue, we recognize the base, the only sure foundation of enlightened society and well-established government.

Source: Brigham Young
JD 2:178.

Topics: Morality; Virtue

How can a republican government stand? There is only one way for it to stand. It can endure; but how? It can endure, as the government of heaven endures, upon the eternal rock of truth and virtue; and that is the only basis upon which any government can endure.

Source: Brigham Young
JD 9:4.

Topics: Government, Forms of; Morality; Virtue

The foundation of a noble character is integrity. By this virtue the strength of a nation, as of an individual, may be judged. No nation will become great whose trusted officers will pass legislation for personal gain, who will take advantage of public office for personal preferment, or to gratify vain ambition or who will, through forgery, chicanery, and fraud, rob the government, or be false in office to a public trust.

Honesty, sincerity of purpose, must be the dominant traits of character in leaders of a nation that would be truly great.

“I hope,” said George Washington, “that I may ever have virtue and firmness enough to maintain what I consider to be the most enviable of all titles—the character of an honest man.”

It was Washington’s character more than his brilliancy of intellect that made him the choice of all as their natural leader when the thirteen original colonies decided to sever their connection with the mother country. As one in eulogy to the father of our country truly said: “When he appeared among the eloquent orators, the ingenious thinkers the vehement patriots of the Revolution, his modesty and temperate profession could not conceal his superiority; he at once, by the very nature of his character, was felt to be their leader.”

Let us in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as citizens of this beloved land, use our influence to see that men and women of upright character, of unimpeachable honor, are elected to office; that our homes are kept unpolluted and unbroken by infidelity; that children therein will be trained to keep the commandments of the Lord, to be honest, true, chaste benevolent, and virtuous, and to do good to all men. (See Thirteenth Article of Faith.)

Source: President David O. McKay
General Conference, April 1964

Topics: Citizenship; Virtue

Lack of Political Honor

Much as I hesitate to reflect upon our government, I cannot refrain from calling attention to governmental practises which I am sure have contributed to the decline of private and public honor. The old saying that all is fair in love and war seems to be painfully applicable to politics as well. Since no campaign is in progress at the present time, one can speak without great hazard of being accused of partisan motives. False representations of persons and parties, innuendoes and half truths designed to besmirch character, and promises given with no intention of fulfilment, are all so common in our political procedure that our inclination is to suspect rather than to believe, and we seldom take a candidate, party or promise at face value. Sectionalism, trading for advantage and pork barrel legislation have degraded our politics to such an extent that real statesmanship is indeed at a premium. With hundreds of thousands of persons in the nation directly or indirectly feeding at the public crib, utilizing every available means at their disposal, either fair or foul which may escape the penalties of the law, for the retention of their positions, and with other hundreds of thousands seeking to displace them, not imbued in the main with any motives other than to put themselves in lucrative positions; will any one contend that such conditions have not tended to reduce materially the standards of public and private integrity throughout the country?

So long as public patronage continues to be the major item in public service, it cannot be otherwise. So long as we tolerate a system of political ethics which permits a man to brazenly announce his own candidacy and more brazenly still appeal and contrive for public support to win for himself an office as if it were a personal perquisite, so long as men call themselves instead of awaiting the call of country, we can scarcely hope for better days in the cause of common political honor.

Source: Elder Stephen L. Richards
General Conference, April 1933

Topics: Politics; Virtue; Welfare

It is the truth that makes men free, free from ignorance, free to choose the right. It is the truth—the knowledge of things as they were, as they are and as they will be which gives to men vision, understanding and wisdom. It is reasonable that more should be expected of those who have the truth. Can a man who has testimony of the truth lie a little, steal a little, or malign his neighbor with impunity? Who sets the standard for a religious man? Is it the community in which he lives, the customs which have become prevalent? No. His standards are set in the revelations of God. Through his faith he hears the commandments of the Lord declared from Sinai resounding down through the ages: “Thou shalt not steal.” “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” He knows that these injunctions are unequivocal and eternal. He knows that they are the foundation of virtue and he knows that they are essential to the eternal welfare of the race. Of course, more is expected of the religious man.

Source: Elder Stephen L. Richards
General Conference, April 1933

Topics: Virtue

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