Benjamin Rush Quotes

25 Sourced Quotes

Temperate, sincere, and intelligent inquiry and discussion are only to be dreaded by the advocates of error. The truth need not fear them...

Benjamin Rush
I shall be better satisfied if the same can be said of me as was said of the prophet of old, "That I walked in the fear of the Lord, and begat sons and daughters" [Genesis 5:22], than if it were inscribed on my tombstone that I governed the councils or commanded the arms of the whole continent of America.

Benjamin Rush
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]...

Benjamin Rush
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."

Benjamin Rush
Without the restraints of religion and social worship, men become savages much sooner than savages become civilized by means of religion and civil government.

Benjamin Rush
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.

Benjamin Rush
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.

Benjamin Rush
I have always considered Christianity as the strong ground of republicanism.

Benjamin Rush
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...

Benjamin Rush
Let us show the world that a difference of opinion upon medical subjects is not incompatible with medical friendships; and in so doing, let us throw the whole odium of the hostility of physicians to each other upon their competition for business and money.

Benjamin Rush
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.

Benjamin Rush
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.

Benjamin Rush
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.

Benjamin Rush
Terror acts powerfully upon the body, through the medium of the mind, and should be employed in the cure of madness.

Benjamin Rush
I need say hardly anything in favor of the Intellects of the Negroes, or of their capacities for virtue and happiness, although these have been supposed by some to be inferior to those of the inhabitants of Europe. The accounts which travelers give of their ingenuity, humanity and strong attachments to their parents, relations, friends and country, show us that they are equal to the Europeans... All the vices which are charged upon the Negroes in the southern colonies, and the West Indies, such as Idleness, Treachery, Theft and the like, are the genuine offspring of slavery, and serve as an argument to prove, that they were not intended, by Providence, for it.

Benjamin Rush
It must afford no small pleasure to a benevolent mind in the midst of a war, which daily makes so much havoc with the human species, to reflect, that the small-pox which once proved equally fatal to thousands, has been checked in its career, and in a great degree subdued by the practice of Inoculation.

Benjamin Rush
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.

Benjamin Rush
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.

Benjamin Rush
Freedom can exist only in the society of knowledge. Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights.

Benjamin Rush
The Bible contains more knowledge necessary to man in his present state than any other book in the world.

Benjamin Rush
As the War Office of the United States was established in a time of peace, it is equally reasonable that a Peace Office should be established in a time of War.

Benjamin Rush
Dreams are nothing but incoherent ideas, occasioned by partial or imperfect sleep.

Benjamin Rush
But passing by all other considerations, and contemplating merely the political institutions of the United States, I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them. 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.

Benjamin Rush
The American war is over; but this far from being the case with the American revolution. On the contrary, nothing but the first act of the drama is closed. It remains yet to establish and perfect our new forms of government, and to prepare the principles, morals, and manners of our citizens for these forms of government after they are established and brought to perfection.

Benjamin Rush
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.

Benjamin Rush