Topic: America, Heritage, Matches 49 quotes.

By natural means, as the Lord always operates for the accomplishment of his purposes, means so simple that the thoughtless and unbelieving do not see the manifestation of his power, he brought the Puritans from the old world to New England, the Dutch to New York, the English Cavaliers to Virginia and the French to New Orleans, a combination of races which, paradoxical as it may appear, was just calculated to give us the composite America who made the United States of America what it is, the greatest nation of the world today.

Inspired men have been raised up, who have given us our form of government, and the code of laws by which we are controlled, the best ever evolved by man, so far as we are able to judge. The Lord has strengthened the arms of the patriots who have defended us against the assaults of all those who have come up against us, and delivered us until today, from those who would have torn us asunder. Against all opposition, I sometimes think almost against ourselves, the Lord has brought us to our present condition, until this nation, like a city set on a hill, has become the light of the world.

Source: President Anthony W. Ivins
General Conference, October 1924

Topics: America, Heritage

Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner! O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wiped out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner forever shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Source: The Star Spangled Banner by Francis Scott Key

Topics: America, Heritage

In the static world of the pagans, the only way to gain a benefit was to take something away from someone else. Under that philosophy, human energy which might have been used to increase wealth was always wasted in fighting over existing wealth. This went on for thousands upon thousands of years; in the process, material wealth was destroyed, human energy was dissipated, and desolation prevailed.

Then, here in America, after 160 years of voluntary cooperation between free individuals, we have pointed the way to a world of peace and plenty. Although we’ve just barely reached the threshold, we’ve gone far enough to disprove the age-old superstition that for one person to make a profit, the other must suffer a loss. Under the American formula, the soundness of the Golden Rule becomes increasingly apparent; and for the first time in history, we have witnessed the paradox of higher wages, lower prices, more things for more people—and we’re only just getting started!

Source: Henry Grady Weaver
The Mainspring of Human Progress, pp. 227-8

Topics: America, Heritage

Three generations—grandfather to grandson—have created these wonders which surpass the utmost imaginings of all previous time. How did it come about? How can it be explained? Just what has been responsible for this unprecedented burst of progress, which has so quickly transformed a hostile wilderness into the most prosperous and advanced country that the world has ever known?

Perhaps the best way to find the answer is first to rule out some of the factors that were not responsible.

To say that it is because of our natural resources is hardly enough. The same rich resources were here when the mound builders held forth. Americans have had no monopoly on iron, coal, copper, aluminum, zinc, lead, or other materials. Such things have always been available to human beings. China, India, Russia, Africa—all have great natural resources. Crude oil oozed from the earth in Baku 4,000 years ago; and when Julius Caesar marched west into Gaul, Europe was a rich and virgin wilderness inhabited by a few roving savages, much as America was when the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth.*

Is it because we work harder? Again the answer is “No” because in most countries the people work much harder, on the average, than we do.

Can it be that we are a people of inherent superiority? That sounds fine in after-dinner oratory and goes over big at election time, but the argument is difficult to support. Our own ancestors, including the Anglo-Saxons, have starved right along with everyone else.

Can it be that we have more energy than other peoples of the world? That’s not the answer either, but it’s getting pretty close. We are not endowed with any superior energy—mental or physical—but it is a fact that we, in the United States of America, have made more effective use of our human energies than have any other people on the face of the globe—anywhere or at any time.

Source: Henry Grady Weaver
The Mainspring of Human Progress, pp. 5-7.

Topics: America, Heritage; Praxeology

If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God.

Source: Attributed to George Washington during the Constitutional Convention

Topics: America, Heritage

America’s abundance was created not by public sacrifices to “the common good,” but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America’s industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance—and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way.

Source: Ayn Rand

Topics: America, Heritage; Capitalism; Progress; Prosperity

American prosperity and American free enterprise are both highly unusual in the world, and we should not overlook the possibility that the two are connected.

Source: Thomas Sowell

Topics: America, Heritage; Capitalism; Progress; Prosperity

A year later, in the summer of 1776, the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia and declared independence from England.

The doctrine of that crowning document—the Declaration of Independence—is this: That the Creator, God, endowed all men with basic rights, and that governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed.

Until the American Revolution, a millennium of political tradition vested powers only in monarchs and dictators. The formers of our republic simply declared the truth—that God gave all men the right to life, liberty, and property. Man, therefore, was master over government rather than the other way around.

That is what the American Revolution was all about—not just a separation from England, but a separation from the historical tradition that made one man another’s chattel and denied all men liberty and property.

While some vacillated on whether to separate from England and adopt the Declaration of Independence, the sentiments of John Adams were described by Daniel Webster as follows:

Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in the beginning we aimed not at independence. But there’s a divinity which shapes our ends . . . why, then, should we defer the Declaration?

You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not live to the time when this Declaration shall be made good . . . . but whatever may be our fate, be assured, . . . that this Declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood: but it will stand, and it will richly compensate for both . . . .

My judgment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope, in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I began, that live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment, independence, now, and independence forever. (The Works of Daniel Webster, 4th ed., 1851, 1:133-36.)

Source: President Ezra Taft Benson
“Righteousness Exalteth a Nation”
Address given 29 June 1986.

Topics: America, Heritage

Can you understand the way God has worked? And if you do, will you join me this day in committing yourself to preach the message of the Lord’s glorious achievement in America and to teach it as missionaries wherever the opportunity allows? This is a time when you and I can afford to be patriotic, in the best sense of that term. There is reason to be proud that we live in an established land that has been conditioned by the Lord so that his gospel could be restored. The purpose of America was to provide a setting wherein that was possible. All else takes its power from that one great, central purpose. May I commend to you Mark E. Petersen’s book The Great Prologue (Deseret Book Co., 1975)? Read it in connection with your scriptures and receive greater light on our history and its purpose.

Source: Elder Paul H. Dunn
General Conference, October 1975

Topics: America, Heritage

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