Benjamin Rush
Mirth, and even cheerfulness, when employed as remedies in low spirits, are like hot water to a frozen limb.
Liberty without virtue would be no blessing to us.
Controversy is only dreaded by the advocates of error.
Scandal dies sooner of itself, than we could kill it.
Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship to restrict the art of healing to one class of Men and deny equal privileges to others; the Constitution of the Republic should make a Special privilege for medical freedoms as well as religious freedom.Collection: Religious
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.Collection: Bible
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.Collection: Bible
Freedom can exist only in the society of knowledge. Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights.Collection: Men
We profess to be republicans, and yet we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible; for this divine book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and all those sober and frugal virtues which constitute the soul of republicanism.Collection: Book
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.Collection: Bible
Let the children...be carefully instructed in the principles and obligations of the Christian religion. This is the most essential part of education.Collection: Bible
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.Collection: Book
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.Collection: Inspiration
Without Virtue there can be no libertyCollection: Freedom
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.Collection: Education
I have alternately been called an Aristocrat and a Democrat. I am neither. I am a Christocrat.Collection: Democrat
Temperate, sincere, and intelligent inquiry and discussion are only to be dreaded by the advocates of error. The truth need not fear them.Collection: Intelligent
The Bible contains more knowledge necessary to man in his present state than any other book in the world.Collection: Book
A simple democracy is the devil's own government.Collection: Simple
Mothers and schools plant the seeds of nearly all the good and evil which exists in the world.Collection: Mother
Patriotism is as much a virtue as justice, and is as necessary for the support of societies as natural affection is for the support of families. The Amor Patriae love of ones country is both a moral duty and a religious duty. It comprehends not only the love of our neighbors but of millions of our fellow creatures, not only of the present but of future generations. This virtue we find constitutes a part of the first characters of history.Collection: Country
By withholding the knowledge of [the Scriptures] from children, we deprive ourselves of the best means of awakening moral sensibility in their minds.Collection: Children
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."Collection: Struggle
Without religion, I believe that learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind.Collection: Real
...This large and expensive stock of drugs will be unnecessary. By...doses of...medicines...multiplying...combining them properly, 20 to 30 articles, aided by the common resources of the lancet, a garden, a kitchen, fresh air, cool water, exercise, will be sufficient to cure all the diseases that are at present under the power of medicine.Collection: Dark
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!Collection: Jesus
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.Collection: Mean
The American war is over, but this is far from being the case with the American Revolution.Collection: War
Christianity is the only true and perfect religion.Collection: Bible
Were I disposed to consider the comparative merit of each of them [facts or theories in medical practice], I should derive most of the evils of medicine from supposed facts, and ascribe all the remedies which have been uniformly and extensively useful, to such theories as are true. Facts are combined and rendered useful only by means of theories, and the more disposed men are to reason, the more minute and extensive they become in their observationsCollection: Mean
I anticipate the Day when to command Respect in the remotest Regions it will be sufficient to say I am an American.Collection: Freedom
In such a performance you may lay the foundation of national happiness only in religion, not by leaving it doubtful "whether morals can exist without it," but by asserting that without religion morals are the effects of causes as purely physical as pleasant breezes and fruitful seasons.Collection: Leaving
Terror acts powerfully upon the body, through the medium of the mind, and should be employed in the cure of madness.Collection: Mind
Dreams are nothing but incoherent ideas, occasioned by partial or imperfect sleep.Collection: Dream
Such is my veneration for every religion that reveals the attributes of the Deity, or a future state of rewards and punishments, that I had rather see the opinions of Confucius or Mahomed inculcated upon our youth than see them grow up wholly devoid of a system of religious principles.Collection: Education
In Macbeth a lady is restrained from the murder of a king by his resemblance of her father as he slept. Should not all men be restrained from acts of violence and even of unkindness against their fellow men by observing in them something which resembles the Savior of the World? If nothing else certainly, a human figure?Collection: Kings
The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.Collection: Knowing Jesus
A Christian cannot fail of being a republican.Collection: Christian
The business of education has lay[ed] the foundations for nurseries of wise and good men, to adapt our modes of teaching to the peculiar form of our government . . . . He must be taught to love his fellow creatures in every part of the world, but he must cherish with a more intense and peculiar affection the citizens of Pennsylvania and of the United States.Collection: Education
It would seem from this fact, that man is naturally a wild animal, and that when taken from the woods, he is never happy in his natural state, 'till he returns to them again.Collection: Taken
Let our pupil be taught that he does not belong to himself, but that he is public property ... He must be taught to amass wealth, but it must be only to increase his power of contributing to the wants and demands of the state... [Education] can be done effectually only by the interference and aid of the Legislature.Collection: Doe
Mania's premonitory signs are unusual acts of extravagance, manifested by the purchase of houses, and certain expensive and unnecessary articles of furniture.Collection: House
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.Collection: Bible
Beer is a wholesome liquor.....it abounds with nourishmentCollection: Humorous
[W]here there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community.Collection: Law
Now if the study of the Scriptures be necessary to our happiness at any time in our life, the sooner we begin to read them, the more we shall be attached to them.Collection: Scripture
A belief in God's universal love to all his creatures, and that he will finally restore all of them that are miserable to happiness, is a polar truth. . . It establishes the equality of [humanity]. . .Collection: Humanity
I have always considered Christianity as the strong ground of republicanism.Collection: Strong
Dissections daily convince us of our ignorance of the seats of diseases, and cause us to blush at our prescriptions. How often are we disappointed in our expectation from the most certain and powerful of our remedies, by the negligence or obstinacy of our patients! What mischief have we done under the belief of false facts and false theories! We have assisted in multiplying diseases. We have done more — we have increased their mortality.Collection: Truth
Without the restraints of religion and social worship, men become savages much sooner than savages become civilized by means of religion and civil government.Collection: Mean