WIST Quotations

Lewis, Sinclair -- Elmer Gantry (1927)

Dave — Tue, 10 Nov 2015 14:43:20 +0000

“Even if some details of dogma aren’t true — or even all of ’em — think what a consolation religion and the church are to weak humanity!”
“Are they? I wonder! Don’t cheerful agnostics, who know they are going to die dead, worry much less than good Baptists, who worry lest their sons and cousins and sweethearts fail to get into the Baptist heaven — or what is even worse, who wonder if they may not have guessed wrong — if God may not be a Catholic, maybe, or a Mormon or Seventh-day Adventist instead of a Baptist, and then they’ll go to hell themselves. Consolation? No!”

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) American novelist, playwright
Elmer Gantry (1927)

Taft, William -- Speech, Young Men’s Hebrew Association, New York (20 Dec 1914)

Dave — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 13:15:15 +0000

There is nothing so despicable as a secret society that is based upon religious prejudice and that will attempt to defeat a man because of his religious beliefs. Such a society is like a cockroach — it thrives in the dark. So do those who combine for such an end.

William Howard Taft (1857-1930) US President (1909-13) and Chief Justice (1921-1930)
Speech, Young Men’s Hebrew Association, New York (20 Dec 1914)

Kennedy, John F. -- Speech, Greater Houston Ministerial Association (12 Sep 1960)

Dave — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 20:34:34 +0000

Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end — where all men and all churches are treated as equal — where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice — where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind — and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) American politician, author, journalist, US President (1961–63)
Speech, Greater Houston Ministerial Association (12 Sep 1960)
(Source)

Kennedy, John F. -- Speech, Greater Houston Ministerial Association (12 Sep 1960)

Dave — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 12:37:12 +0000

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish — where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source — where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials — and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) American politician, author, journalist, US President (1961–63)
Speech, Greater Houston Ministerial Association (12 Sep 1960)
(Source)

Kennedy, John F. -- Speech, Greater Houston Ministerial Association (12 Sep 1960)

Dave — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 12:09:12 +0000

For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew — or a Quaker — or a Unitarian — or a Baptist. It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim — but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) American politician, author, journalist, US President (1961–63)
Speech, Greater Houston Ministerial Association (12 Sep 1960)
(Source)