Separation Between Church And State Quotes:

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.

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

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.

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

. . . Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.

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

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

source: John Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.293

topic: Religious, Father, Rights, State Government, Our Founding Fathers

I can't tell Black people to fight a war that is Israel's war. What kind of leader will you be, or should I be, to allow these babies Black, white and brown, to fight Israel's war, because Zionists dominate the government of the United States of America and her banking system.

topic: Life, God, Acceptance, Theocracy, Deism

- Louis Farrakhan

topic: Baby, Religious, War, State Government, Deist

Question with boldness even the existence of a god.

I believe in an America ... where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches, or any other ecclesiastical source.

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

- John F. Kennedy

source: Address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, delivered 12 September 1960 at the Rice Hotel in Houston, TX

topic: Believe, America, Church, Theocracy, Public Officials

The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature. . . . [In] the formation of the American governments . . . it will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of heaven. . . . These governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.

The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.

topic: Simple, Government, America, State Government, Deism

Encourage free schools and resolve that not one dollar appropriated for their support shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian schools. Resolve that neither the state nor nation, nor both combined, shall support institutions of learning other than those sufficient to afford every child growing up in the land of opportunity of a good common school education, unmixed with sectarian, pagan, or atheistical dogmas. Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church and the private school supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.

topic: Patriotic, Europe, Blood, Founding Fathers Anti Religion, Founding Fathers Atheist

- Ulysses S. Grant

topic: Children, Growing Up, School, Land Of Opportunity, Public School

I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.

- George Carlin

topic: Atheist, Ideas, Two, Certain Death, Religion And Government

And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.

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.

source: James Madison, David B. Mattern (1997). “James Madison's "Advice to My Country"”, p.89, University of Virginia Press

topic: Past, Government, Doubt, Our Founding Fathers, Religion And Government

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

topic: Religious, Ignorance, Pride, Shackles, Deism

I don't believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country.

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

- Rick Santorum

source: Interview with George Stephanopoulos, abcnews.go.com. February 26, 2012.

topic: Country, Believe, Ideas, Theocracy, Church And State

I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

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.

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

topic: Men, Rights, Progress, Separation Between Church And State, Natural Rights

The 'wall of separation between church and state' is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.

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

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

- William Rehnquist

topic: Wall, Judging, Church, Church And State, Separation Between Church And State

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

I am opposed to any form of tyranny over the mind of man.

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

It may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to unsurpastion on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinence of the Gov't from interfence in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others.

topic: Men, Mind, Censorship, Individual Liberty, Theocracy

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.

topic: Order, Rights, Doubt, Collision, Guarded

The civil Government, though bereft of every thing like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability, and performs its functions with complete success; whilst 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.

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

I am tolerant of all creeds. Yet if any sect suffered itself to be used for political objects I would meet it by political opposition. In my view church and state should be separate, not only in form, but fact. Religion and politics should not be mingled.

source: "Letters and Other Writings of James Madison".

topic: Government, Religion, Atheism, State Government, Christian Church

- Millard Fillmore

topic: Views, Political, Religion, Religion And Politics, Church And State

I believe in the American tradition of separation of church and state which is expressed in the First Amendment to the Constitution. By my office - and by personal conviction - I am sworn to uphold that tradition.

- Lyndon B. Johnson

topic: Believe, Office, Religion, Church And State, American Tradition

I could not do otherwise without transcending the limits prescribed by the Constitution for the President and without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion nowadays enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.

- Andrew Jackson

source: "A Subaltern's Furlough : Descriptive of Scenes in Various Parts of the United States, Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia during the Summer and Autumn of 1832" by Edward Thomas Coke, Ch. 9, p. 145, 1833.

topic: Country, Government, Political, Separation Between Church And State, Separation Of Church And State

An alliance or coalition between Government and religion cannot be too carefully guarded against......Every new and successful example therefore of a PERFECT SEPARATION between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance........religion and government will exist in greater purity, without (rather) than with the aid of government.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

topic: Successful, Government, Perfect, Religious Bigotry, Bigots

- Thomas Paine

topic: Inspirational, Christian, Pain, Turkish, Religious Faith

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

The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?

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.

source: John Adams, Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson (1971). “The Adams-Jefferson letters: the complete correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams”, Touchstone

topic: Kings, Race, Faith Religion, Deism, Our Founding Fathers

- George Washington

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

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.