Topic: Morality, Matches 55 quotes.

The founding fathers understood that principle “righteousness exalteth a nation” (Proverbs 14:34) and helped to bring about one of the greatest systems ever used to govern men. But unless we continue to seek righteousness and preserve the liberties entrusted to us, we shall lose the blessings of heaven. Thomas Jefferson said, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” The price of freedom is also to live in accordance with the commandments of God. The early founding fathers thanked the Lord for His intervention in their behalf. They saw His hand in their victories in battle and believed strongly that He watched over them.

The battles are not over yet, and there will yet be times when this great nation will need the overshadowing help of Deity. Will we as a nation be worthy to call upon Him for help? President Brigham Young said: “We all believe that the Lord will fight our battles; but how? Will he do it while we are unconcerned and make no effort whatever for our own safety when the enemy is upon us ? . . . The Lord requires us to be quite as willing to fight our own battles as to have Him fight them for us. If we are not ready for the enemy when he comes upon us, we have not lived up to the requirements of Him who guides the ship of Zion, or who dictates the affairs of the Kingdom.” (Journal of Discourses, 11:131.)

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

Topics: Morality

To restore freedom, we must reclaim the moral initiative. We must reconsecrate respect for justice as applicable to the individual, not the collective. We must hold as sacrosanct our right to earn and hold property, to direct its use, and to wield it as a shield against malefactors. We must proclaim our right as free, autonomous, and sovereign individuals to do what we want, say what we will, and build our lives without the permission, sanction, or approval of any group. We should and must never be punished for the transgressions of others.

Source: Russell Madden
Punishing the Many, Ideas on Liberty, June 2000.

Topics: Morality; Private Property; Rights

Since the founding of the Republic the roots of our nation have drawn nurture from the waters of faith in God. “In God we trust” is the motto that appears on our money. As we face into the third century of our national life, it is time that we renewed our spiritual anchors. “Look to God and live,” said an ancient prophet. As it was then, so it is today. “God Bless America” is the song we sing with reverence and pleading. Those blessings will come only as we deserve them. The inspired men who wrote our Constitution were raised up by the God of heaven “unto this very purpose.” Can we expect peace and prosperity, harmony and goodwill while turning our backs on the source of our strength?

George Washington in his farewell address declared:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness—these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.

The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them . . . .

It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. This rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free government. (Quoted by J. Reuben Clark in Stand Fast By Our Constitution [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1973], p. 27.)

Source: President Gordon B. Hinckley
Address given 26 June 1988 at the Freedom Festival at Provo, UT.

Topics: Government, Good; Morality

Something is weakening the moral fiber of the American people. We have always had couples live together without marriage, but we have not honored it as an acceptable lifestyle. We have always had children born out of wedlock, but we have never made it to be respectable. And we have never before regarded babies, conceived in wedlock or out, to be an inconvenience and destroyed them by the thousands through abortion. And this while barren couples yearn for a child to raise.

We have always had some who followed a life of perversion, but we have never before pushed through legislation to protect that way of life lest we offend the rights of an individual. We have never been this liberated before.

We have always had those who were guilty of criminal acts, but we have not put the rights of the accused above the rights of the victim.

If one single soul does not wish to listen for a moment to a public prayer, one which does not offend, even pleases the majority, we are told we must now eliminate prayer completely from all of public life.

We have always had addictive drugs, but not in the varieties we have now and not widely sold near public schools, even elementary schools. When perversion and addiction are justified as the expression of individual rights and call up a pestilence which threatens even the innocent, must the right of privacy preclude even testing to find where it is moving? What kind of individual freedom is this, anyway?

Did our young men die for this? We have always held the rights of the individual to be sovereign. But we have never before placed the collective rights of the majority in subjugation to the individual rights of any single citizen.

Any virtue, pressed to an extreme, becomes a vice; thrift becomes stinginess, generosity becomes wastefulness, self-confidence becomes pride, humility becomes weakness—and on and on. Individual rights as an ideal cannot endure except there be respect for the agency of others. There is no true freedom without responsibility. Freedom without restraint becomes tyranny of a new and fatal kind.

Source: Elder Boyd K. Packer
Address given 25 June 1989 at the Freedom Festival at Provo, UT.

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; Morality

There must be enough of us who have faith enough and who are moral enough to desire that which is right. Virtues, like love and liberty and patriotism, do not exist in general, they exist in particular. If morality exists at all, it exists in the individual heart and mind of the ordinary citizen. Such virtues cannot be isolated in any other place; not in the rocks or in the water, not in trees or air, not in animals or birds. If it exists at all, it exists in the human heart. Morality flourishes when the rank and file are free. It flourishes where a conscience is clear, where men have faith in God and are obedient to the restraints He has set upon human conduct.

Source: Elder Boyd K. Packer
Address given 25 June 1989 at the Freedom Festival at Provo, UT.

Topics: Morality; Virtue

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

In “America the Beautiful” we also sing about establishing a “thoroughfare of freedom.” Many of our streets, instead of being a “thoroughfare of freedom,” are unsafe. Ironically, drugs and pornography often have staked out their own well-worn “thoroughfares” or corridors, and “free” zones. Surely it is one of the first duties of government to protect its citizens. Nevertheless, however beefed up, law enforcement cannot realistically be expected to compensate fully for widespread lack of individual self-control.

We rightly sing about how a “good” America should be crowned “with brotherhood.” But instead of increasing brotherhood there is increasing separatism. There is even rising racism. Among our citizens there is also decreasing respect for each other. Engulfing gangs remind us soberingly of failing families and neighborhoods.

We sing, too, about how our “alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears.” Yet our cities don’t gleam. Many are decaying, covered with graffiti. They are dimmed with human tears of desperation by those who feel left out of the American dream.

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

Topics: Freedom, Loss of; Morality; Responsibility

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

There is a widespread feeling that the honored values of this nation are eroding and must be re-enthroned. When someone in good conscience tries to say this, invariably someone else raises the voice, “Whose values?” My answer to that is, everybody’s values: time-honored values such as absolute honesty, complete integrity, decency and civility, marriage, independence, industry, thrift, self-reliance, respect for law and order, and hard work. These are human values.

I do not wish to be a voice of doom. I wish to be a voice of confidence and hope in our country. The United States, with all of its challenges and problems, is still the greatest haven of opportunity in the world. Our government has never been more greatly challenged to defend its borders from people from other countries who wish to live here and enjoy the freedoms and opportunities this country affords. The desirability of this country will persist so long as its citizenry are a God-fearing people with the integrity to obey the law of the land. This includes the laws we do not like as well as the laws we do like.

There are natural safeguards in a God-fearing people that promote respect for law and order, decency, and public civility. That restraining influence is the belief that the citizenry will be accountable to their Creator for their conduct under a high moral law. This respect for and adherence to moral law transcends the constraints of the civil and criminal codes. In a people who are not God-fearing, however, these characteristics are notably absent.

Will public civility be lost under the guise of claiming under Constitutional safeguards the rights to freedom of speech? Will tolerance of other faiths and beliefs continue to be diminished by claiming rights under the establishment and free exercise clauses of the Constitution?

Source: James E. Faust
Address given 2 July 1995 at the Freedom Festival at Provo, UT.

Topics: Morality

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