Religious Persecution Quotes:

Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.

- Thomas Paine

topic: Motivation, Law, Church, Christian Church, Christian Persecution

Once you attempt legislation upon religious grounds, you open the way for every kind of intolerance and religious persecution.

- William Butler Yeats

topic: Religious, Atheism, Way, Religious Persecution

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.

- Susan B. Anthony

topic: Inspirational, God, Death, Anti Religious, Religion And Politics

Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.

- Edmund Burke

source: Speech, 18 February 1788, in E. A. Bond (ed.) 'Speeches...in the Trial of Warren Hastings' (1859) vol. 1, p. 104

topic: Religious, Atheism, Zealous, Religious Persecution

The religious persecution of the ages has been done under what was claimed to be the command of God.

- Susan B. Anthony

topic: Religious, Atheist, Diversity, Religious Persecution

Religious tolerance is something we should all practice; however, there have been more persecution and atrocities committed in the name of religion and religious freedom than anything else.

- Walter Koenig

topic: Religious, Practice, Names, Atrocities Committed, Religious Persecution

The spirit of religious persecution is not the special failing of any particular faith, but springs eternal in the human breast.

- Dion Fortune

topic: Religious, Spring, Special, Religious Persecution

The sole purpose and effect of it is to exclude persecution and to secure the important right of religious liberty.

- Oliver Ellsworth

topic: Religious, Atheism, Liberty, Christian Father, Christian Persecution

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

I beg you be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.

- George Washington

topic: Spiritual, Religious, Would Be, Our Founding Fathers, Christian Church

... happily the Government of the United States... gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.

- George Washington

source: Letter to Hebrew congregation of Newport, R.I., 17 Aug. 1790

topic: Atheist, Government, Giving, Founding Fathers Religious, Religion And Government

Religion which requires persecution to sustain, it is of the devil's propagation.

- Hosea Ballou

topic: Devil, Persecution, Propagation, Religious Persecution, Persecuted

People who prefer to believe the worst of others will breed war and religious persecutions while the world lasts.

- Dorothy L. Sayers

topic: Religious, War, Believe, Religious Persecution

Systems of religious error have been adopted in times of ignorance. It has been the interest of tyrannical kings, popes, and prelates to maintain these errors. When the clouds of ignorance began to vanish and the people grew more enlightened, there was no other way to keep them in error but to prohibit their altering their religious opinions by severe persecuting laws. In this way persecution became general throughout Europe.

- Oliver Ellsworth

topic: Religious, Kings, Ignorance, Christian Father, Christian Persecution

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction - to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens.

- George Washington

topic: Patriotic, Exercise, Class, Good Citizen, Founding Fathers Religious

Religious freedom is often referred to as America's first freedom. Our country was founded by religious exiles and built on the belief that God has given all people certain inalienable rights. Government's role in society is to protect these rights and ensure that we are safe from religious persecution and discrimination.

- Marco Rubio

source: Source: www.cnn.com

topic: Country, Religious, Rights, Religious Freedom, Religious Persecution

Historically the Puritans left England to escape religious persecution, and they promptly turned around and started persecuting the people they didn't agree with - the scarlet letter A, and the stocks and the dunking board came from that. That puritanism is still there.

- Hugh Hefner

topic: Religious, People, England, Dunking, Puritanism

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

source: Denis McDonough's Speech on International Religious Freedom, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. September 12, 2012.

topic: Religious, Rights, Government, Religious Persecution

Monotheistic religions alone furnish the spectacle of religious wars, religious persecutions, heretical tribunals, that breaking of idols and destruction of images of the gods, that razing of Indian temples and Egyptian colossi, which had looked on the sun 3,000 years: just because a jealous god had said, Thou shalt make no graven image.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

topic: Religious, War, Jealous, Religious Persecution, Religious Wars

The one distinct feature of our Association has been the right of the individual opinion for every member. We have been beset at every step with the cry that somebody was injuring the cause by the expression of some sentiments that differed with those held by the majority of mankind. The religious persecution of the ages has been done under what was claimed to be the command of God. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do to their fellows, because it always coincides with their own desires.

- Susan B. Anthony

topic: Religious, Expression, People, Religious Persecution

If Christianity were true religious persecution would become a pious and charitable duty: if God designs to punish men for their opinions it would be an act of mercy to mankind to extinguish such opinions. By burning the bodies of those who diffuse them many souls would be saved that would otherwise be lost, and so there would be an economy of torment in the long run. It is therefore not surprising that enthusiasts should be intolerant.

- William Winwood Reade

source: William Winwood Reade (1876). “The Martyrdom of Man”, p.228

topic: Running, Religious, Men, Religious Persecution

Ever since you're little you hear this: 'The pilgrims left England to escape religious persecution and sneak religious freedom into the new world.' But even when you're little you're like, 'Umm.. Bullsh*t?'

- Greg Proops

topic: Religious, Funny Thanksgiving, World, Sneak, Religious Persecution

Our two nations have a lot in common, when you think about it. We were both founded by immigrants escaping religious persecution in other lands. We both have built vibrant democracies. Both our countries are founded on certain basic beliefs, that there is an Almighty God who watches over the affairs of men and values every life. These ties have made us natural allies, and these ties will never be broken.

- George W. Bush

topic: Country, Religious, Men, Two Nations, Religious Persecution

Among all the religious persecutions with which almost every page of modern history is stained, no victim ever suffered but for violation of what Government denominated the law of God. To prevent a similar train of evils in this country, the Constitution has wisely withheld from our Government the power of defining the divine law.

- Richard Mentor Johnson

topic: Country, Religious, Law, Modern History, Divine Law

The United States, which has been called the home of the persecuted and the dispossessed, has been since its founding an asylum for emotional orphans. For over three hundred years, refugees from political oppression, religious persecution, famine, poverty, and a rigid class system which limited educational and economic opportunities have been leaving their native villages and cities and coming to the United States in search of freedom and a better life.

- Eileen Simpson

topic: Religious, Educational, Home, Class System, Political Oppression

Today, in Mexico, they speak 65 languages, counting the indigenous languages, 65. It is a people of great faith. They have also suffered religious persecution.

- Pope Francis

source: "Full text of Pope Francis' in-flight interview from Mexico to Rome". www.catholicnewsagency.com. February 18, 2016.

topic: Religious, People, Mexico, Religious Persecution

America became a special source of attraction to people who were fleeing the aftereffects of the 30 Years War and the religious persecution that began to sweep through Europe in the period between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. And when people got here, very often they succeeded.

- Mitch Horowitz

topic: Religious, War, Years, Religious Persecution

That ideology was never going to work, was it? It was just cobbled together from different beliefs: The anti-intellectualism of the Khmer Rouge, the religious persecution of the Nazis, the enforced beard-wearing from the world of folk music, and the segregation and humiliation of women from the world of golf.

- Bill Bailey

source: "Bill Bailey: Part Troll". Documentary, Comedy, Music, 2004.

topic: Funny, Religious, Humor, Khmer Rouge, Different Beliefs

The whole history of the last thousands of years has been a history of religious persecutions and wars, pogroms, jihads, crusades. I find it all very regrettable, to say the least.

- Steven Weinberg

source: "SCIENTIST AT WORK: Steven Weinberg; Physicist Ponders God, Truth and 'Final Theory'" by James Glanz, www.nytimes.com. January 25, 2000.

topic: Religious, War, Years, Jihad, Religious Persecution

For many people, I've ceased to be a human being. I've become an issue, a bother, an "affair".... And has it really been so long since religions persecuted people, burning them as heretics, drowning them as witches, that you can't recognize religious persecution when you see it?

- Salman Rushdie

source: "Excerpts From Rushdie's Address: 1,000 Days 'Trapped Inside a Metaphor'". Address at Columbia University, www.nytimes.com. December 12, 1991.

topic: Religious, Issues, Long, Religious Persecution

At the bottom of religious persecution is the doctrine of self-defence; that is to say, the defence of the soul. If the founder of Christianity had plainly said: 'It is not necessary to believe in order to be saved; it is only necessary to do, and he who really loves his fellow-men, who is kind, honest, just and charitable, is to be forever blest' - if he had only said that, there would probably have been but little persecution.

- Robert Green Ingersoll

topic: Religious, Believe, Men, Religious Persecution, Self Defence