TIME.com: Q&A: Tom DeLay Talks with TIME — Page 1
DeLay:My main point was that this country was built on morals and religion. Our greatest leaders were very strong believers. There is a connection between religion and politics, and religion and government. There has to be for this country to have accomplished all it’s accomplished and for its future. How many times have the great leaders—Ronald Reagan, Roosevelt, Lincoln, George Washington—have said there is a connection between morals and religion. And there has to be. The people that go to church understand that a country has to be based on some sort of religion and fear of God because they understand that.
“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion” — George Washington
“It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.” — Thomas Jefferson
“On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.” — Thomas Jefferson
“Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man”
— Thomas Jefferson
“I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.”
— Thomas Jefferson
“The authors of the gospels were unlettered and ignorant men and the teachings of Jesus have come to us mutilated, misstated and unintelligible”
— Thomas Jefferson
“The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.” — Thomas Jefferson
“The loathsome combination of Church and State”
— Thomas Jefferson
“In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.” — Thomas Jefferson
“Religions are all alike — founded upon fables and mythologies”
— Thomas Jefferson
“All persons shall have full and free liberty of religious opinion; nor shall any be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious institution”
— Thomas Jefferson
“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism”
— Thomas Jefferson
“Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism”
— George Washington
“It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it.”
— George Washington
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
— Abraham Lincoln
“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I believe that every individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruits of his labor, so far as it in no way interferes with any other men’s rights” — Abraham Lincoln
“I care not for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it” — Abraham Lincoln
“When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.” — Abraham Lincoln
“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group,” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
“No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
“If I went to work in a factory the first thing I’d do is join a union.”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
“A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Today we are faced with the preeminent fact that, if civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships – the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world, at peace”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Selfishness is the only real atheism; aspiration, unselfishness, the only real religion.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
“We’ve gone astray from first principles. We’ve lost sight of the rule that individual freedom and ingenuity are at the very core of everything that we’ve accomplished. Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.” — Ronald Reagan
“I made a speech by that title [A Time for Choosing] in 1964. I said, “We’ve been told increasingly that we must choose between left or right.” But we’re still using those terms — left or right. And I’ll repeat what I said then in ’64. “There is no left or right. There’s only an up or down”: up to the ultimate in individual freedom, consistent with an orderly society — or down to the totalitarianism of the ant heap. And those today who, however good their intentions, tell us that we should trade freedom for security are on that downward path.” — Ronald Reagan
“If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.”
— George Washington
“I have not observed men’s honesty to increase with their riches.”
— Thomas Jefferson
“I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an “Honest Man.”” — George Washington
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