Religious Liberty Quotes:

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.

- John Adams

topic: Religious, Revenge, Ambition, Strong Government, Moral Virtues

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim tribute to patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness - these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. . . . reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.

- George Washington

topic: Religious, Business, Men, Moral Virtues, Morality And Religion

We are gonna to have to choose as a nation between the homosexual agenda and freedom because the two cannot coexist. Every advance of the homosexual agenda, comes at the expense of liberty, particularly religious liberty.

- Bryan Fischer

topic: Religious, Two, Liberty, Coexist, Religious Liberty

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

- John Adams

topic: Bible, God, Religious, Moral Decay, Liberty And Justice

That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of the conscience; and it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.

- Patrick Henry

topic: Christian, 4th Of July, Exercise, Forbearance, Christian Father

This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.

- John Adams

topic: Religious, Insightful, Liberty, Anti Religious, Founding

It is difficult to discern a serious threat to religious liberty from a room of silent, thoughtful schoolchildren.

- Sandra Day O'Connor

topic: Religious, Thoughtful, Liberty, Religious Liberty

In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.

- Thomas Jefferson

topic: Country, Religious, Religion, Our Founding Fathers, Deist

The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.

- Thomas Jefferson

topic: Jesus, Father, Brain, Minerva, World Religions

The error seems not sufficiently eradicated, that the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body, are subject to the coercion of the laws. But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.

- Thomas Jefferson

topic: Rights, Government, Law, Theocracy, State Government

Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.

- Samuel Adams

topic: Religious, Freedom, Religion, 4th Of July Inspirational, Fourth Of July Inspirational

Because we hold it for 'a fundamental and undeniable truth', that religion or 'the duty which we owe to our Creator' and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.

- James Madison

source: James Madison (1787). “The Writings of James Madison: 1783-1787”, p.184

topic: Religion, Religious Truth, Fundamentals, Forbearance, Christian Freedom

I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the States the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in any religious discipline has been delegated to the General Government. It must then rest with the States.

- Thomas Jefferson

topic: Religious, Exercise, Government, Christianity And Government, Church And State

The opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous falacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty...

- Thomas Jefferson

source: Thomas Jefferson's Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, founders.archives.gov. June 18, 1779.

topic: Religious, Men, Suffering, Jurisdiction, Magistrates

I have often expressed my sentiments, that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.

- George Washington

topic: Religious, Men, Liberty, Christian Freedom, Christian Patriotic

Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence.

- James Madison

source: James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

topic: Confidence, Religious, Unions, Mischievous, Religious Liberty

When they [the Church] have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever broke down the wall itself, removed the Candlestick, etc., and made His Garden a wilderness as it is this day. And that therefore if He will ever please to restore His garden and Paradise again, it must of necessity be walled in peculiarly unto Himself from the world, and all that be saved out of the world are to be transplanted out of the wilderness of the World.

- Roger Williams

topic: Wall, Garden, Church, Religious Liberty

Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

- George Washington

topic: Education, Wisdom, Religious, Indulge, Founding

The religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.

- James Madison

topic: Religious, Exercise, Men, Religious Liberty, Religious Truth

The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of persecuting Usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical Religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity.

- James Madison

source: James Madison (1965). “The forging of American federalism: selected writings of James Madison”

topic: Christian, Religious, Heart, Social Harmony, Incorporation

Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption

- James Madison

source: James Madison, David B. Mattern (1997). “James Madison's "Advice to My Country"”, p.90, University of Virginia Press

topic: Ignorance, Religious Truth, Corruption, Our Founding Fathers, Christian Father

Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history.

- James Madison

topic: Government, Religion, Atheism, Guarded, Christian Father

Among the features peculiar to the political system of the United States is the perfect equality of rights which it secures to every religious sect. [...] Equal laws protecting equal rights, are found as they ought to be presumed, the best guarantee of loyalty, and love of country; as well as best calculated to cherish that mutual respect and good will among citizens of every religious denomination which are necessary to social harmony and most favorable to the advancement of truth.

- James Madison

source: Letter to Jacob De La Motta, printed in "Letters and Other Writings of James Madison, vol. 3" (1867), August 1820.

topic: Loyalty, Country, Religious, Social Harmony, Love And Loyalty

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people... it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

- John Quincy Adams

topic: Religious, Business, 4th Of July, Moral Virtues, Morality And Religion

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.... During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.

- James Madison

topic: Religious, Ignorance, Pride, Shackles, Deism

[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

- James Madison

source: James Madison (1836). “The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: As Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia in 1787. Together with the Journal of the Federal Convention, Luther Martin's Letter, Yates's Minutes, Congressional Opinions, Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of '98-'99, and Other Illustrations of the Constitution”, p.204

topic: Religious, Atheist, Faith Religion, Anti Religious, Atheistic

Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not.

- James Madison

source: James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

topic: Government, Atheism, Liberty, Christian Father, Christianity And Government

What has been the effect of [religious] coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.

- Thomas Jefferson

source: Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”

topic: Religious, Hypocrite, Errors, Uniformity, Christian Father

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

- James Madison

source: Virginia. General Assembly. House of Delegates, J. W. Randolph, James Madison (1850). “The Virginia Report of 1799-1800: Touching the Alien and Sedition Laws; Together with the Virginia Resolutions of December 21, 1798, Including the Debate and Proceedings Thereon in the House of Delegates of Virginia and Other Documents Illustrative of the Report and Resolutions”, p.136

topic: Exercise, Secular Society, Law, Redress, Founding

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

- Thomas Jefferson

topic: Religious, Wall, Lying, Religious Faith, State Government

We are teaching the world the great truth that Governments do better without Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion Flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.

- James Madison

topic: Religious, Kings, Teaching, Religion And Government, Religious Liberty

Question with boldness even the existence of a god.

- Thomas Jefferson

topic: Existence, Boldness, Evidence Of God, Theism, World Religions

The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state.

- James Madison

topic: Numbers, People, Religion, Priesthood, Religion And Government

The notion of religious liberty is that you cannot be forced to participate in a religious ceremony that's not of your choosing simply because you're out-voted.

- Ira Glasser

topic: Religious, Liberty, Ceremony, Religious Liberty

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.

- Thomas Jefferson

topic: Life, God, Acceptance, Theocracy, Deism

It is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other.

- James Madison

source: James Madison (1867). “1769-1793”, p.24

topic: Christian, Practice, Charity, Forbearance, Religious Liberty

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

- Thomas Jefferson

topic: Truth, Freedom, Mistake, State Government, Deism

An enforced uniformity of religion throughout a nation or civil state, confounds the civil and religious, denies the principles of Christianity and civility, and that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.

- Roger Williams

source: Roger DAVIS, Roger Williams (2009). “On Religious Liberty: Selections from the Works of Roger Williams”, p.87, Harvard University Press

topic: Religious, Jesus, Flesh, Uniformity, Religious Liberty

We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart. In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States.

- George Washington

topic: Religious, Heart, Men, Forfeit, Christian Church

When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.

- Benjamin Franklin

topic: Support, Religion, Atheism, Obliged, Laws And Government

The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.

- John Adams

source: John Adams (2015). “The Works of John Adams Vol. 10: Letters and State Papers 1811 - 1825”, p.38, Jazzybee Verlag

topic: Bible, God, Religious, One Nation Under God, Dependence On God

As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims] ... it is declared ... that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever product an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.... The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation.

- John Adams

topic: Christian, Country, Religious, State Government, Deism

Freedom has only the meaning with which men endow it. It is not enough to pay lip service to the concept of religious liberty. We must pay heart service to it as well, else it remains an empty phrase instead of a living reality.

- Kenneth Keating

topic: Religious, Heart, Reality, Living Reality, Religious Liberty