Endowed By Our Creator Quotes & Sayings

We have forgotten what Thomas Jefferson told us in 1776: that we are endowed by the Creator "with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." Not happiness, mind you, but its pursuit. By implication Jefferson warned that if you pursue happiness for someone else, you deny him the right to pursue it on his own. — John Rosemond

By the way
we also hold these truths to be self evident
that all men are created equal
that they have been endowed by their creator
with certain inalienable rights
that among these are life
Liberty
& the pursuit of Happiness
& last but not least
that 2+2 makes 4
unless otherwise instructed — Nicanor Parra

Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given. But up to now he hasn't been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life's become extinct, the climate's ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day. — Anton Chekhov

What will be the judgment a century hence concerning the lorded works of our favorite composers today? Inasmuch as nearly everything is subject to the changes of time, and - more's the pity- the fashions of time, only that which is good and true will endure like a rock and no wanton hand will ever venture to defile it. Then, let every man do that which is right, strive with all his might towards the goal which can never be obtained, develop to the last breath the gifts with which the gracious Creator has endowed him, and never cease to learn. For life is short, art eternal. — Ludwig Van Beethoven

Thomas Jefferson, that owner of many slaves, chose to begin the Declaration of Independence by directly contradicting the moral basis of slavery, writing "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights ... " thus undercutting simultaneously any argument that Africans were racially inferior, and also that they or their ancestors could ever have been justly and legally deprived of their freedom. In doing so, however, he did not propose some radically new conception of rights and liberties. Neither have subsequent political philosophers. For the most part, we've just kept the old ones, but with the word "not" inserted here and there. Most of our most precious rights and freedoms are a series of exceptions to an overall moral and legal framework that suggests we shouldn't really have them in the first place. — David Graeber

I learned that the possessions most esteemed by your fellow-creatures were, high and unsullied descent united with riches. A man might be respected with only one of these acquisitions; but without either he was considered, except in very rare instances, as a vagabond and slave, doomed to waste his powers for the profit of the chosen few. And what was I? Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant; but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, endowed with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man. I was more agile than they, and could subsist upon coarser diet; I bore the extremes of heat and cold with less injury to my frame; my stature far exceeded their's. When I looked around, I saw and heard of none like me. Was I then a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled, and whom all men disowned? — Mary Shelley

I think at the heart of the pro-life movement is the idea that all people are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights starting with life. — Mike Huckabee

It is easily and often overlooked that when Thomas Jefferson asserted that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were inalienable human rights, he did so on the ground that they had been endowed by God, our Creator. — Tom Stoppard

Liberal politics are incompatible with . . . a [religious] community, unless it is further believed that the individual members of the community have been endowed with reason and free will by their Creator and that they have no certain knowledge of what were/are the Creator's intentions. - Leonard Binder, Islamic Liberalism — Mustafa Akyol

The Declaration of Independence summarizes the civic principles of American life. It agrees with this biblical perspective when it affirms that we are all created equal and endowed by the Creator, God, with our unalienable rights. — Alan Keyes

All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with a mighty urge to become otherwise. — Evan Esar

The first men to be created and formed were called the Sorcerer of Fatal Laughter, the Sorcerer of Night, Unkempt, and the Black Sorcerer ... They were endowed with intelligence, they succeeded in knowing all that there is in the world. When they looked, instantly they saw all that is around them, and they contemplated in turn the arc of heaven and the round face of the earth ... [Then the Creator said]: 'They know all ... what shall we do with them now? Let their sight reach only to that which is near; let them see only a little of the face of the earth! ... Are they not by nature simple creatures of our making? Must they also be gods? — Anonymous

The "pursuit of happiness" is such a key element of the "American (ideological) dream" that one tends to forget the contingent origin of this phrase: "We holds these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Where did the somewhat awkward "pursuit of happiness" come from in this famous opening passage of the US Declaration of Independence? The origin of it is John Locke, who claimed that all men had the natural rights of life, liberty, and property - the latter was replaced by "the pursuit of happiness" during negotiations of the drafting of the Declaration, as a way to negate the black slaves' right to property. — Slavoj Zizek

First there is the democratic idea: that all men are endowed by their creator with certain natural rights; that these rights are alienable only by the possessor thereof; that they are equal in men; that government is to organize these natural, unalienable and equal rights into institutions designed for the good of the governed, and therefore government is to be of all the people, by all the people, and for all the people. Here government is development, not exploitation. — Theodore Parker

Thomas Jefferson understood the greater purpose of the liberty that our Founding Fathers sought during the creation of our Nation. Although it was against the British that the colonists fought for political rights, the true source of the rights of man was clearly stated in the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson wrote that all humans are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights ... It was self-evident to him that denying these rights was wrong and that he and others must struggle to win what was theirs. — William J. Clinton

American Evangelicals are fond of quoting the Declaration of Independence when it insists, "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." Curiously, not as much fondness is found for quoting what comes later in the very same sentence: "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it. — Gordon Runyan

Before the formation of this Constitution it had been affirmed as a self evident truth, in the Declaration of Independence, very deliberately made by the Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled that 'all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights' This declaration of Independence was received and ratified by all the States in the Union & has never been disannuled. May we not from hence conclude, that the doctrine of Liberty and Equality is an article in the political creed of the United States. — Samuel Adams

He amended the thought to say that men were "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights," thus — Christopher Hitchens

I feel that I was made to complete things. To accomplish only a mass of beginnings and attempts would be to make a total failure of life. Perfection is the heritage with which my Creator has endowed me, and since this short life does not give completeness, I must have immortal life in which to find it. — Randolph Sinks Foster

True Democracy makes no enquiry about the color of the skin, or the place of nativity. Wherever it sees a man, it recognizes a being endowed by his Creator with original inalienable rights — Salmon P. Chase

If I had created myself, I would be taller, blond, and more well endowed, financially. I would have cast out spiders and bad-hair days. Therefore, and hence, I believe strongly in a Creator who not only gave me the gift, but the free will to create my own journey through life. — Audrey Conn

I stand before you today heart broken, I know history and I love this country ... God blessed this country and it took sacrifice because even though they were endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that's an inheritance. And if you are not willing to fight for you inheritance, even when you leave your children, if they won't fight for it, they don't keep it. Mean greedy evil people will take it away. — Louie Gohmert

We should remember that the Declaration of Independence is not merely a historical document. It is an explicit recognition that our rights derive not from the King of England, not from the judiciary, not from government at all, but from God. The keystone of our system of popular sovereignty is the recognition, as the Declaration acknowledges, that 'all men are created equal' and 'endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.' Religion and God are no alien to our system of government, they're integral to it. — Mark R. Levin

Now to act with integrity, according to that strength of mind and body with which our creator hath endowed each of use, appears necessary for all. — John Woolman

And when you tell me that somebody's skin color or gender is going to determine their prospects in this world, that is turning the clock back hundreds of years. Back to a time before this nation declared that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator; not by their ancestry, not by their skin color, not by their gender, not by Congress, not by the Constitution, and not by the laws — Alan Keyes

President Obama understands that, as a nation founded by those who fled religious persecution, freedom of religion is central to who we are as Americans. Our rights are not given to us by government, they are endowed by our Creator. — Denis McDonough

The Declaration of Independence states the the Creator gave man the right to liberty. It seems man can realize that liberty only if he does not forget the One who endowed him with it. — Vaclav Havel

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are
created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights; that among these are life, and the right to
make that of another miserable by thrusting upon him an
incalculable quantity of acquaintances; liberty, particularly the
liberty to introduce persons to one another without first
ascertaining if they are not already acquainted as enemies; and
the pursuit of another's happiness with a running pack of
strangers. — Ambrose Bierce

The right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children is among the unalienable rights with which the Declaration of Independence proclaims all men [and women] are endowed by their creator. — Antonin Scalia

Today is a celebration of hope for the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people can now take control of their government and their future by creating a society that protects the rights endowed to us by our creator - life, liberty and freedom. — Jim DeMint

From this moment dates the idea (hostile to every concept of
ancient thought, which, on the contrary, reappeared to a certain extent in the mind of revolutionary
France) that man has not been endowed with a definitive human nature, that he is not a finished creation
but an experiment, of which he can be partly the creator. — Albert Camus

We were endowed by our Creator with the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We were not endowed by the Federal Government. We were not endowed by entitlements. We were not endowed by pork barrel spending; we were not endowed by budgetary earmarks. — Lawrence Kudlow

If we are all endowed by our creator with the right to pursue happiness, that has to apply to the poorest neighborhoods in the poorest counties, and I am prepared to find something that works, that breaks us out of the cycles we have now to find a way for poor children to work and earn honest money. — Newt Gingrich

should I respect the work of the creator, of the gardener, or should I accept the survival instinct with which nature endowed this plant, which I now call a 'weed'? — Paulo Coelho

Now, tell me how you're going to teach the history of Jefferson, and cut out all those quotes and cut out all these facts, and cut out the key line of the Declaration of Independence: We are endowed by our Creator. I mean you have to have a conscious deliberate censorship of America, which is what the left and the courts and the classrooms has had for 40 years. — Newt Gingrich