Quotes & Sayings About Ten Commandments

Next Clay gave the house rules for living with theSorrentinos , which sounded a lot like the Ten
Commandments. Thou shall not lie, steal anything, kill anyone, disrespect your hosts or covet
any of Nick's girlfriends. And if you break the rules, you'll get your ass kicked and handed to you
in pieces - a part I suspect God left out. — Kelley Armstrong

If God would have wanted us to live in a permissive society He would have given us Ten Suggestions and not Ten Commandments. — Zig Ziglar

What the ten commandments set forth is a strategy. This strategy is a strategy for dominion. — Gary North

I am saying to you that to me the Constitution of the United States is just as much from my Heavenly Father as the Ten Commandments — George Albert Smith

Is it too bold to point out
that there is nothing in the ten commandments
about protecting children against cruelty?
Nothing against rape and nothing against slavery,
and nothing agains genocide.
Could this be because these crimes
are positively recommended
in the rest of the bible? — A.J. Beirens

The first book ever written in an alphabet was the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament. And the most important passage was the Ten Commandments. The first commandment is the most revolutionary sentence ever written. It states: "I am the Lord thy God there is no other." The second prohibits us from making images. Thus, there is a profound rejection of any goddess influence and a ban of representative art. — Leonard Shlain

A hypocritical businessman, whose fortune had been the misfortune of many others, told Mark Twain piously, "Before I die I intend to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I want to climb to the top of Mount Sinai and read the Ten Commandments aloud."
"I have a better idea," suggested Twain. "Why don't you stay right at home in Boston and keep them? — Mark Twain

The Ten Commandments are the lowest possible standard of humane living. — Erwin Raphael McManus

The next time you hear someone cite, 'Do not kill' when quoting the sixth commandment, gently but firmly explain that it actually says, 'Do not murder. — Dennis Prager

The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Ten Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted; precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden. — G.K. Chesterton

Thou shalt not think that thou be a leader, merely because thee be having more than 0 followers. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

We need to agree on common values for all religions as soon as possible, a kind of secular Ten Commandments on which we will build the world of tomorrow. — Lech Walesa

The real goal of the Earth Charter is that it will in fact become like the Ten Commandments. — Maurice Strong

Human life is created in God's image, and that makes it sacred. — Colin S. Smith

God had spoken to His people through His Word. It had humbled them in their sins, but it had lifted them up to see the grace and mercy of God, and then had directed them into a new life of obedience. In all our desperate searching for ways to find joy, God is telling us that we will never find joy like the joy of knowing God, being humbled in our sins, experiencing His grace, and walking in a life of obedience. — Colin S. Smith

The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse: You cannot post "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not commit adultery," and "Thou shalt not lie" in a building full of lawyers, judges, and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment. — George Carlin

But who is to decide who truly fears the Lord? The magistrate has no power to enforce religious demands. The laws of the First Table of the Ten Commandments are not regulations for a civil society or a political order. They belong to the realm of religion, not politics. — Roger Williams

America, where thanks to Congress, there are forty million laws to enforce the Ten Commandments. — Anatole France

This was the difficulty with laws and with legal language: they used language which very few people, apart from lawyers, understood. Penal Codes, then, were all very well, but she wondered whether it might not be simpler to rely on something like the Ten Commandments, which, with a bit of modernisation, seemed to give a perfectly good set of guidelines for the conduct of one's life, — Alexander McCall Smith

The Ten Commandments are the divinely revealed law. — Roy Moore

Congress is going to start tinkering with the Ten Commandments just as soon as they find someone in Washington who has read them. — Will Rogers

The reason some of us swing from elation to despair so easily is that we rejoice wrongly. Our worshipping is in the wrong place. We spend too much of our energy and vitality on the wrong thing. Yet God, because He created us for worship, pursues our worship. The first commandment listed in the Ten Commandments is God instructing His people to worship only Him. — Matt Chandler

As soon as we got back I ran upstairs and told everyone the story, thus telling everyone the alarm code, thus breaking one of the Ten Commandments when I lied and said I'd keep the code a secret. As I've known for a long, long time now, hell is going to be totally fucking worth it. — Sarah Royal

People encounter God under shady oak trees, on riverbanks, at the tops of mountains, and in long stretches of barren wilderness. God shows up in whirlwinds, starry skies, burning bushes, and perfect strangers. When people want to know more about God, the son of God tells them to pay attention to the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, to women kneading bread and workers lining up for their pay. Whoever wrote this stuff believed that people could learn as much about the ways of God from paying attention to the world as they could from paying attention to scripture. What is true is what happens, even if what happens is not always right. People can learn as much about the ways of God from business deals gone bad or sparrows falling to the ground as they can from reciting the books of the Bible in order. They can learn as much from a love affair or a wildflower as they can from knowing the Ten Commandments by heart. — Barbara Brown Taylor

What Moses brought down from Mt Siniai were not ten suggestions. They are Commandments — Ted Koppel

If you think that it would be impossible to improve upon the Ten Commandments as a statement of morality, you really owe it to yourself to read some other scriptures. Once again, we need look no further than the Jains: Mahavira, the Jain patriarch, surpassed the morality of the Bible with a single sentence: 'Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being.' Imagine how different our world might be if the Bible contained this as its central precept. Christians have abused, oppressed, enslaved, insulted, tormented, tortured, and killed people in the name of God for centuries, on the basis of a theologically defensible reading of the Bible. — Sam Harris

As ancient Israel had removed the Ten Commandments from its national consciousness, so America did likewise, removing the Ten Commandments from — Jonathan Cahn

The Hebrew original does not say, 'Do not kill.' It says, 'Do not murder.' Both Hebrew and English have two words for taking a life - one is 'kill' (harag, in Hebrew) and the other is 'murder' (ratzach in Hebrew). — Dennis Prager

Do you realize what would happen if Moses were alive today? He'd go up to Mount Sinai, come back with the Ten Commandments, and spend the next eight years trying to get published. — Robert Orben

I do believe that half a dozen commonplace attorneys could so mystify and misconstrue the Ten Commandments, and so confuse Moses' surroundings on Mount Sinai, that the great law-giver, if he returned to this planet, would doubt his own identity, abjure every one of his deliverances, yea, even commend the very sins he so clearly forbade his people. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Morally considered, laughter is next to the Ten Commandments. — Josh Billings

I am not a titleholder; I don't steal; I don't lie... — Ljupka Cvetanova

The Neo-Pagan Ten "Commandments"

1. Thou art God/dess.
2. As above, so below; as within so without.
3. Spirit abides in all things; words & names have power.
4. Maintain an attitude of gratitude (walk the talk).
5. Honor the ancestors, teachers, elders, and leaders.
6. All life is sacred.
7. All acts of love and pleasure are sacred.
8. Whatever you send out returns threefold.
9. Love is the law, love under will.
10. For the greatest good, an' it harm none. — Marian Singer

As she read the ten commandments for the first time, a Chinese woman said, "I don't see how anyone can very well get on without them." — James Keller

Another question a biblically literate reporter might have asked is, "Why are you proclaiming the Ten Commandments when you believe no one can live up to all of them?" — Cal Thomas

Moses has the Ten Commandments, it's true, but I've got much better lines - King David — Joseph Heller

The Ten Commandments were not a suggestion. — Pat Riley

The true and equitable law of humanity is the free exchange of service for service. Spoliation consists in destroying by force or by trickery the freedom of exchange, in order to receive a service without rendering one. Forcible spoliation is exercised thus: Wait till a man has produced something; then take it away from him by violence. It is solemnly condemned in the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not steal. — Frederic Bastiat

Even in the Bible, the admonition in the Ten Commandments not to 'covet thy neighbor's wife' clearly referred not to lust in one's heart (adultery had already been covered in commandment number seven), but to the prospect of taking her as a debt-peon - in other words, as a servant to sweep one's yard and hang out the laundry. — David Graeber

Could I come near your beauty with my nails, I'd set my ten commandments in your face. — William Shakespeare

The truth doesn't change. It was the same when Moses got the Ten Commandments as it is today. That's the thing about the truth. That's the thing about real. It doesn't change and it doesn't have to change. Now you can put it in a different book, but it's still real. It's still the truth. — DMX

Do you advocate the Ten Commandments as a guide to the good life? Then I can only presume that you don't know the Ten Commandments. — Richard Dawkins

DECALOGUE, n. A series of commandments, ten in number - just enough to permit an intelligent selection for observance, but not enough to embarrass the choice. — Ambrose Bierce

The only way those Ten Commandments and prayer would be stripped from that Courtroom is with the force of arms. — Fob James

TEN BREAKUP COMMANDMENTS:
1. Move out
2. You cannot be friends
3. Do not process this break-up together
4. Do not bad mouth your ex to other people
5. Get rid of anything that reminds of him
6. Start and exercise regimen
7. Pursue an interest you could not have pursued while you and your ex were together
8. Take a vacation
9. Embrace Change
10. Go on a date — Melissa Kantor

Religio", as we know, harks back to a word (re-ligio) meaning "bond" and that is precisely what the anarch rejects. He does not go in for Moses with the Ten Commandments or, indeed, for any prophets. Nor does he wish to hear anything concerning gods or rumors about them, except as a historian - or unless they appear to him. That is when the conflicts begin.
So, if I state, "in order to pray," I am following an innate instinct that is no weaker than the sexual drive - in fact, even stronger. The two are alike insofar as foul things can happen when they are suppressed. — Ernst Junger

If God had been a liberal, we wouldn't have had the Ten Commandments - we'd have the Ten Suggestions. — Malcolm Bradbury

When we're trying to decide whether a leader is a good leader or a bad one, the question to ask is: 'Is he with the Ten Commandments or is he against them?' Then you can determine if the leader is a true messiah or another Stalin. — Isaac Bashevis Singer

The idea of "Ten Commandments" is a deeply compelling one. It combines two impulses that are ingrained in our nature as human beings: making lists of ten things, and telling other people how to behave. — Sean Carroll

Some current critics of the U.S. Supreme Court like to point out that it does not allow the Ten Commandments, though written upon the walls of its own chambers, to be displayed in public schools. But where do we find churches, right or left, that put them on their walls? The Ten Commandments really aren't very popular anywhere. This is so in spite of the fact that even a fairly general practice of them would lead to a solution of almost every problem of meaning and order now facing Western societies. They are God's best information on how to lead a basically decent human existence. — Dallas Willard

Thus, though Christians are in no way bound by the Jewish ceremonial or civil laws (because they were all in some way preparatory for Christ), we are still under the Ten Commandments in one way, though not in two other ways. — Peter Kreeft

The Law given from Sinai [The Ten Commandments] was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code. — John Quincy Adams

In vain we call old notions fudge, And bend our conscience to our dealing; The Ten Commandments will not budge, And stealing will continue stealing. — James Russell Lowell

Lots of people today would never consider themselves guilty of idolatry as far as it is spelled out in the Ten Commandments, but by reducing God to some benevolent "man upstairs" whose only attributes are love and tolerance, and who could not care less about sin, they truly have transgressed God's commandment. They have created a god in their mind who does not actually exist and will on the day of judgment, not be able to offer them any help. — Charlie Campbell

There are thousands of Ten Commandments plaques or monuments all over the country, and lawsuits to remove them have popped up in more than a dozen states. — Phyllis Schlafly

Perhaps these Ten Commandments cases will be the turning point in the legal war against religion. — Cliff Stearns

Conclude not from all this that I have renounced the Christian religion ... Far from it. I see in every page something to recommend Christianity in its purity, and something to discredit its corruptions ... The ten commandments and the sermon on the mount contain my religion. — John Adams

All men are evil, that's what I was talking to my father about.
What did he say?
Fuck 'em.
Really?
Yeah.
At least he answered you.
I got the feeling that he thinks it's my problem now.
Makes you wonder why he didn't burn that on one of the tablets. 'HERE, MOSES, HERE'S THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, AND HERE'S AN EXTRA ONE THAT SAYS FUCK 'EM.'
He doesn't sound like that. — Christopher Moore

For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, often with tears in their eyes, the demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.
"Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break! — Kurt Vonnegut

The Lord gave us Ten Commandments, but the bill before the House today gives us 39. — Tom Lantos

I come from a people who gave the Ten Commandments to the world. Time has come to strenghten them by three additional ones, which we ought to adopt and commit ourselves to: thou shall not be a perpetrator; thou shall not be a victim; and thou shall never, but never, be a bystander. — Yehuda Bauer

If I could go back to a point in history to try to get things to come out differently, I would go back and tell moses to go up the mountain again and get the other tablet. Because the Ten Commandments just tell us what we are supped to do with one another, not a word about our relationship to the earth. Genesis starts with these commands: multiply, replenish the earth, and subdue it. We have multiplied very well, we have replenished our populations very well, we have subdued it all too well, and we don't have any other instruction. — David Brower

The nation should be ruled by the Ten Commandments. — Theodore Roosevelt

Our goal must be simple. We must have a Christian nation built on God's law, on the ten Commandments. No apologies. — Randall Terry

Rather than being handed down from above, like the Ten Commandments, they [the laws of physics] look exactly as they should look if they were not handed down from anywhere ... they follow from the very lack of structure at the earliest moment. — Victor J. Stenger

The Ten Commandments have never been replaced as the moral basis upon which society rests. — Edwin Louis Cole

The Ten Commandments, for example, were no more challenging than the Girl Scout oath, and why should anyone be tempted to put one false god ahead of another? — Barbara Ehrenreich

The President must be true to his word. He must keep his faith with the folks who elected him twice. In other words, he must replace Sandra Day O'Connor with a strict constructionist. The president has a God-given opportunity to change the balance on the Supreme Court. On issue after issue - abortion, sodomy, public display of the Ten Commandments - O'Connor has sided with the court's liberal bloc. Time and again, Justice O'Connor and her colleagues have used the Constitution as an excuse to force weird social experiments on the nation. — Rick Scarborough

I started growing up in a hurry and taking a lot of the philosophy I'd heard from church as a kid a lot more seriously - especially the Ten Commandments - and wondering how 'Thou shalt not kill' could be so absolutely ignored. It took me until I was in my 40s to write what I was thinking as a young soldier. — Dave Brubeck

Conservatism, we are told, is out-of-date. This charge is preposterous and we ought to boldly say so. The laws of God, and of nature, have no dateline. [ ... ] These principles are derived from the nature of man, and from the truths that God has revealed about His creation. [ ... ] To suggest that the Conservative philosophy is out of date is akin to saying that the Golden Rule, or the Ten Commandments or Aristotle 's Politics are out of date. — Barry Goldwater

When men see how relevant the ten commandments are for economics, they should gain new respect for the importance of the laws of God for all of life, but especially for the life of dominion man, the man redeemed by grace through faith in the one true Dominion Man, Jesus Christ. — Gary North

No man can break any of the Ten Commandments. He can only break himself against them. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

God first acts in grace and mercy by delivering the people, and then the people respond in gratitude and thanksgiving by obeying the commandments. Put succinctly: the crossing of the Red Sea comes before the giving of the Ten Commandments. How — Richard J. Foster

When you consider that God could have commanded anything he wanted
anything!
the Ten [Commandments] have got to rank as one of the great missed moral opportunities of all time. How different history would have been had he clearly and unmistakably forbidden war, tyranny, taking over other people's countries, slavery, exploitation of workers, cruelty to children, wife-beating, stoning, treating women
or anyone
as chattel or inferior beings. — Katha Pollitt

Public opinion is stronger than the legislature, and nearly as strong as the ten commandments. — Charles Dudley Warner

The Beatitudes correspond to the Decalogue, with blessings in lieu of the forbidden. — James Mikolajczyk

Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them. — H.L. Mencken

The Ten Commandments being taken out of the public schools. I want them back. — Kinky Friedman

The Ten Commandments are just as valid today as they were when God gave them. They reflect the moral character of God, and they also provide the foundation of right living with others. — Billy Graham

From the beginning, Judeo-Christian principles have been the foundation for American public dialogue and government policy. They serve as the solid basis for political activism in support of a better socioeconomic environment. Found in American homes, truth from the Hebrew Christian Bible has enabled individual liberty to prevail over secular empires because it is a practical message about reality from man's Creator.
In their quest for liberty, Americans focused upon the conspicuously self-evident "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." It is the governing character of these principles (laws), such as humility, the Golden Rule, and the Ten Commandments, that leads to success. This is the sure foundation upon which man's right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" rests. Called "virtue" by America's Founding Fathers, the impartial and divine element frees man to do what is right. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Cor. 3:17). — David A. Norris

We've staked our future on our ability to follow the Ten Commandments with all our heart. — James Madison

I am in favor of hanging the Ten Commandments in every schoolroom in the country so young people can know the difference between right and wrong. They don't know the difference and we're seeing the evidence of that all around us every day. — Billy Graham

Beginning when he was nine years old, Spencer memorized the Articles of Faith, the Ten Commandments, and most of the hymns from the Church hymnal while milking the cows and watering the horses each day. — The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints

In bounded communities, aggression is projected outward. For example, the ten commandments say, "Thou shalt not kill." Then the next chapter says, "Go into Canaan and kill everybody in it." That is a bounded field. The myths of participation and love pertain only to the in-group, and the out-group is totally other. — Joseph Campbell

He is the thief man who steals away your youth in the middle of the night. He is the evil whose shadow engenders fear in rural areas. He is the bogyman who keeps children up at night. He is the terrorist who claims to be enforcing the Ten Commandments while he breaks most of them.
The Prophet of Life From: The Most Notorious Serial Killer You've Likely Never Heard of i — The Prophet Of Life

When our atheistically dominated Supreme Court removed the Ten Commandments from our halls, not a whimper was heard from the 95 million Christians in this country, who still don't realize that their religious freedoms are being systematically removed without a fight. — Tim LaHaye

No, this is not what a fair God would do. And why does it not say anywhere in the Bible that slavery is wrong? It only says that you should treat your slaves well. Well, I don't care if you treat them well. How is it possible that it is not immoral to own another person? Why isn't that one of the Ten Commandments? 'Thou shalt not own another person.' You want to sit here and tell me that fornication is worse than owning someone? — Mira Sorvino

The heart of the gospel is that Christ has come to save us from the judgment of God. — Colin S. Smith

(Alfred's sister, Olive Deering, was famous in those years for her sentiments during her filming of the endless DeMille epic The Ten Commandments: "Who do I have to fuck to get off this picture?") — Lee Grant

You cannot sensibly expect a starving 'God-fearing' man to honor the 8th commandment. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Even those who claim the Bible's inerrancy make distinctions between Scriptural edicts, sensing that some passages - the Ten Commandments, say, or a belief in Christ's divinity - are central to Christian faith, while others are more culturally specific and may be modified to accommodate modern life. — Barack Obama

Because love stands above Darkness and Light.
Because love is not sex or a shared faith, or "the joint maintenance of a household and the upbringing of children."
Because love is also Power.
And Light and Darkness, people and Others, morality and law, the Ten Commandments and the Great Treaty have damn all to do with it. — Sergei Lukyanenko

The father of sin was theft; every one of the Ten Commandments boiled down to "Thou shalt not steal." Murder was the theft of a life, adultery the theft of a wife, covetousness the secret, slinking theft that took place in the cave of the heart. Blasphemy was the theft of God's name, swiped from the House of the Lord and sent out to walk the streets like a strutting whore. — Stephen King

Far be it for the public schools to teach this, but the U.S.A. was founded on basic Judeo-Christian principles. Don't believe me - take a trip to Washington D.C. and tour the Supreme Court building. There you will see a sculpted copy of the Ten Commandments on the wall. — Bill O'Reilly

In short, is American life of the future to be characterized by freedom or by servitude, strength or weakness? The answer must be clear and unequivocal if we are to avoid the pitfalls toward which we are now heading with such certainty. In many respects it is not to be found in any dogma of political philosophy but in those immutable precepts which underlie the Ten Commandments. — Douglas MacArthur

All the Ten Commandments and prayer is an acknowledgement of the Almighty God. We will not back down from that. — Roy Moore

Sometime over the past generation we became less likely to object to something because it is immoral and more likely to object to something because it is unhealthy or unsafe. So smoking is now a worse evil than six of the Ten Commandments, and the word sinful is most commonly associated with chocolate. — David Brooks

The Ten Commandments are the greatest list of instructions ever devised for creating a good society. But such a society cannot be created or maintained if it is not based on truth. — Dennis Prager

The Bible is full of dreadful things. There's a Psalm that says "Happy will you be when you take your enemy's children and dash their heads against the stones." Don't read that to me on Sunday morning and say "This is the word of the Lord." It's like that crazy man down in Alabama who wanted to put the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. — John Shelby Spong

I believe in eight of the ten commandments. I believe in going to church every Sunday ... unless there's a game on. — Steve Martin