"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible."
--George Washington

A pretty exhaustive web search finds a claim that this was said by
Washington in the infamous "Halley's Bible Handbook", published in
1927, and I have verified it in my copy of that book on page 18 along
with myriad other undocumented quotes.
I also found it adjacent to two other quotes on Barton's Wallbuilder
site:

http://www.inplainsite.org/html/quotes2.html

wherein there is a footnote to Burk which I traced as applying only to
the first of the three, and the third quote is said to be from the
Farewell address, and it is at least close to correct.

The middle quote, which is the above one, has no source listed, but
visually might appear to be part of the third quote to someone not
looking carefully (there are separate quote marks), and thus many
people might think that it is being cited from the Farewell Address
when in fact it is not from that text. This may explain why so many
websites have the faulty attribution to the Farewell address; they got
it from Barton and his flaky attributions (or from whatever source he
got it from).
The following gives a pretty good account of the history of the abuse
of Washington's life with regard to religion. It cites several books
published over the years that are rife with edited quotes, and
misquotes and sheer fabrications purportedly from Washington. One
would likely have to search these in order to find the original place
where the alleged Bible quote came from.

But the most likely source, in my mind, is Burk. Burk published
volumes of stuff about Washington, much of it bogus, trying to raise
money for the Washington Memorial Chapel in Valley Forge

http://www.nps.gov/vafo/treese/treese5.htm

gives a history of Burk and his antics. A typical bogus quote from
Burk:

"Let me live according to those holy rules which Thou hast this day
prescribed in Thy holy word...Direct me to the true object, Jesus
Christ the way, the truth and the life. Bless, O Lord, all the people
of this land."

-- George Washington, 1752. Cited in W. Herbert Burk, ed.,
Washington's Papers (Norristown, Penn.: published for the benefit of
the Washington Memorial Chapel, 1907), pp. 87-95).

and

http://jagger.me.berkeley.edu/~lawton/gwprayer.html

has another Burk-ism which is unconfirmed.

It simply is too easy to suspect that Burk fabricated the Bible quote
as well; it fits his modus operandi.

But only someone willing to dig through his stuff as well as the 19th
century Washington biographies mentioned in the infidels.org page will
be able to find real information about the source of this quote.

lojbab

:|On Mon, 18 Aug 2003, Carol Lee Smith wrote:
:|
:|> > >:|I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.
:|> > >:|Thomas Jefferson
:|
:|> > The above is a bogus quote.
:|
:|> What about this one:
:|
:|> "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible."
:|> --George Washington
:|
:|Whoops. I should have checked with your very good website about this
:|quote which is listed as unconfirmed, even by Barton.

:|
:|"Barton lists the following quotations as unconfirmed (i.e., no one has
:|been able to trace them to an original source):
:|
:|It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation
:|was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but
:|on the gospel of Jesus Christ! --Patrick Henry
:|
:|It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.
:|--George Washington
:|
:|Whosoever shall introduce into the public affairs the principles of
:|primitive Christianity will change the face of the world. --Benjamin
:|Franklin
:|
:|The principles of all genuine liberty, and of wise laws and
:|administrations are to be drawn from the Bible and sustained by its
:|authority. The man therefore who weakens or destroys the divine authority
:|of that book may be assessory [sic] to all the public disorders which
:|society is doomed to suffer. --Noah Webster
:|
:|There are two powers only which are sufficient to control men, and secure
:|the rights of individuals and a peaceable administration; these are the
:|combined force of religion and law, and the force or fear of the bayonet.
:|--Noah Webster
:|
:|The only assurance of our nation's safety is to lay our foundation in
:|morality and religion. --Abraham Lincoln
:|
:|The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy
:|of government in the next. --Abraham Lincoln
:|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:|http://candst.tripod.com/tnppage/misqidx.htm