Your search for "Providence" returned 11 results from 8 Founders.
John Jay:"What reason is there to expect that Heaven will help those who refuse to help themselves; or that Providence will grant liberty to those who want courage to defend it. ... Let not the history of the present glorious contest declare to future generations that the people of your country, after making the highest professions of zeal for the American cause, fled at the first apprearance of danger, and behaved like women. ... Instead of supplicating the protection of your enemies, meet them with arms in your hands--make good your professions, and let not your attachment to freedom be manifesteed only in your words."source: To the General Commitee of Tryon County, July 22, 1777.Providence, patriotism, defense, honor
Thomas Jefferson:"When great evils happen, I am in the habit of looking out for what good may arise from them as consolations to us; and Providence has in fact so established the order of things as that most evils are the means of producing some good."source: To Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800.good vs. evil, positive outlook, optimism, providence
John Adams:"Let the pulpit resound with the doctrine and sentiments of religious liberty. Let us hear of the dignity of man's nature, and the noble rank he holds among the works of God. [...] Let it be known that British liberties are not grants of princes and parliaments."source: Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law 1765religious freedom, providence
James Madison:"The real wonder is that so many difficulties should have been surmounted... with a unanimity almost as unprecedented as it must have been unexpected. It is impossible for any man of candor to reflect on this circumstance without partaking of the astonishment. It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution."source: Federalist Papers, No. 37, pp. 230-31.providence, God, beliefs of the Founders, revolutionary war, ponder, overcoming challenges
George Washington:"No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency."source: Fitzpatrick, Writings of George Washington, 30:292.God, beliefs of the Founders, providence
George Washington:"It is not for man to scan the wisdom of Providence. The best he can do is to submit to its decrees."source: To Henry Knox, March 2, 1797.God, Providence, divinity, wisdom, humility
James Madison:"This belief in a God All Powerful wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities to be impressed with it. ... This finiteness of the Human understanding betrays itself on all subjects, but more especially when it contemplates such as involve infinity. What may safely be said seems to be, that the infinity of time and space forces itself on our conception, a limitation of either being inconceivable: that the mind prefers at once the idea of a self existing cause to that of an infinite series of cause and effect, which arguments, instead of avoiding the difficulty: and that it finds more facility in assenting to the self existence of an invisible cause possessing infinite power, wisdom and goodness, than to the self existence of the universe, visibly destitute of those attributes, and which may be the effect of them."source: To Frederick Beasley, November 29, 1825.God, providence, wisdom, eternity, infinity, man's mere existence
Rev. Jonathan Mayhew:"To a generous mind, the public good, as it is the end of government, so it is also such a noble and excellent one, that the prospect of attaining it will animate the pursuit, and being attained, it will reward the pains. The very name of patriotism is indeed become a jest with some men; which would be much stranger than it is, had not so many others made a jest of the thing, serving their own base and wicked ends, under the pretext and colour of it. But there will be hypocrites in politicks, as well as in religion. Nor ought so sacred a name to fall into contempt, however it may have been prostituted & profaned, to varnish over crimes. And those times are perilous indeed, wherein men shall be only lover of their own selves, having no concern for the good of the public. Shall we go to the pagans to learn this god-like virtue? Even they can teach it. ... [A Christian lacking patriotism] ... would be a reporach not only to his religion, a religion of charity and beneficence, but even to our own common nature, as corrupt and depraved as it is. But how much more infamous were this, in persons of public character? in those, on whom the welfare of their country, under providence, immediately depends?"source: Election sermon, 1754.patriotism, hypocrites, politics, christianity
William Penn:"[A]s it is some men's duty to plow, some to sow, some to water, and some to reap; so it is the wisdom as well as duty of a man, to yield to the mind of providence, and cheerfully, as well as carefully, embrace and follow the guidance of it."source: A Letter from William Penn, 1683.God, prividence, duty, humility
John Dickinson:"Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness. ... We claim them from a higher source--from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence ... It would be an insult on the divine Majesty to say, that he has given or allowed any man or body of men a right to make me miserable. If no man or body of men has such a right, I have a right to be happy. If there can be no happiness without freedom, I have a right to be free. If I cannot enjoy freedom without security of property, I have a right to be thus secured. "source: Reply to a Committee in Barbados, 1766happiness, undeniable rights, liberty, freedom, God, security of property, misery, parliament
John Adams:"I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence for the illumination of the ignorant, and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth."source: Cleon Skousen, The 5000 Year Leap. p304founding of America, potential of America, emancipation, example of America

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