Church And State Quotes - Page 4

• We in the United States, above all, must remember that lesson, for we were founded as a nation of openness to people of all beliefs. And so we must remain. Our very unity has been strengthened by our pluralism. We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to believe or not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free, and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief.

  Ronald Reagan

  Country, Believe, Pluralism Is

  Ronald Reagan's Remarks to Members of the Congregation of Temple Hillel and Jewish Community Leaders in Valley Stream, New York, www.reaganlibrary.gov. October 26, 1984.

  113 Copy quote

  Show source

• Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Spiritual, Religious, Atheist

  James C. Humes, Benjamin Franklin (1995). “The wit and wisdom of Benjamin Franklin: a treasury of more than 900 quotations and anecdotes”, Harpercollins

  112 Copy quote

  Show source

• I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute - where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act. I do not speak for my church on public matters - and the church does not speak for me.

  John F. Kennedy

  Believe, America, Catholic

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

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Government, Religion, Atheism

  72 Copy quote

• The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders’ political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs.

  Ron Paul

  Religious, Father, Writing

  "The War on Religion" by Ron Paul, www.lewrockwell.com. December 30, 2003.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Government, Political

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Inaugural addresses and messages. Replies to public addresses. Indian addresses. Miscellaneous: 1. Notes on Virginia; 2. Biographical sketches of distinguished men; 3. The batture of New Orleans”, p.400

  89 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think it's very important for people who are serving (in office) to make sure there's a separation of church and state.

  George W. Bush

  Thinking, People, Office

  4 Copy quote

• There is a fundamental difference between separation of church and state and denying the spiritual heritage of this country. Inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. are Jefferson's words, 'The God Who gave us life gave us liberty -- can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?'

  Ronald Reagan

  Country, Spiritual, Differences

  14 Copy quote

• The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Atheist, Government

  Notes on the State of Virginia, query 17 (1781 - 1785)

  78 Copy quote

  Show source

• If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Atheist, Religion

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.428, Penguin

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?

  John Adams

  Christian, Religious, Faith Religion

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1856). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.235

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• To discriminate against a thoroughly upright citizen because he belongs to some particular church, or because, like Abraham Lincoln, he has not avowed his allegiance to any church, is an outrage against the liberty of conscience, which is one of the foundations of American life.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Presidential, Church, Liberty

  Theodore Roosevelt (1908). “Americanism in Religion”

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Oliver Ellsworth

  Religious, Important, Atheism

  13 Copy quote

• Blasphemy and sedition (meaning the truth about Church and State).

  George Bernard Shaw

  Church, States, Blasphemy

  George Bernard Shaw (2010). “Back to Methuselah”, p.12, The Floating Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Of all the differences between the Old World and the New, this is perhaps the most salient. Half the wars of Europe, half the internal troubles that have vexed European States... have arisen from theological differences or from the rival claims of Church and State. This whole vast chapter of debate and strife has remained virtually unopened in the United States. There is no Established Church. All religious bodies are equal before the law, and unrecognized by the law, except as voluntary associations of private citizens.

  James Bryce

  Religious, War, Europe

  4 Copy quote

• The mixing of government and religion can be a threat to free government, even if no one is forced to participate.... When the government puts its imprimatur on a particular religion, it conveys a message of exclusion to all those who do not adhere to the favored beliefs. A government cannot be premised on the belief that all persons are created equal when it asserts that God prefers some.

  Harry A. Blackmun

  Government, Religion, Atheism

  35 Copy quote

• America wasn't founded as a theocracy. America was founded by people trying to escape theocracies. Never in history have we had a Christian theocracy where it wasn't bloody and barbaric. That's why our Constitution wisely put in a separation of church and state.

  Gregory A. Boyd

  Christian, America, People

  23 Copy quote

• The traitor to Humanity is the traitor most accursed; Man is more than Constitutions; better rot beneath the sod, Than be true to Church and State while we are doubly false to God.

  James Russell Lowell

  Men, Humanity, Church

  James Russell Lowell (1871). “The poetical works of James Russell Lowell”, p.82

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• It might be said that religious freedom in the American sense, incorporating the separation of church and state, has been the pivotal concept of the national development of the United States of America.

  Joseph Leon Blau

  Religious, America, Atheism

  4 Copy quote

• I call'd the devil, and he came, And with wonder his form did I closely scan; He is not ugly, and is not lame, But really a handsome and charming man. A man in the prime of life is the devil, Obliging, a man of the world, and civil; A diplomatist too, well skill'd in debate, He talks quite glibly of church and state.

  Heinrich Heine

  Men, Skills, Church

  Heinrich Heine (1866). “The Poems of Heine: Complete”, p.210

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish - where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

  John F. Kennedy

  Religious, Believe, America

  Speech at Greater Houston Ministerial Association, Rice Hotel, Houston, Texas, www.presidency.ucsb.edu. September 12, 1960.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have sworn upon the altar of god.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Government, Faith Religion

  Letter to Benjamin Rush, 23 Sept. 1800

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• Now I realize it's fashionable in some circles to believe that no one in government should encourage others to read the Bible. That we're told we'll violate the constitutional separation of church and state established by the Founding Fathers and the First Amendment. The First Amendment was not written to protect people and their laws from religious values. It was written to protect those values from government tyranny.

  Ronald Reagan

  Religious, Father, Believe

  11 Copy quote

• . . . 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.

  John Adams

  Religious, Father, Rights

  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

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• We should begin by setting conscience free. When all men of all religions shall enjoy equal liberty, property, and an equal chance for honors and power we may expect that improvements will be made in the human character and the state of society.

  John Adams

  Religious, Father, Character

  John Adams (2015). “The Works of John Adams Vol. 8: Letters and State Papers 1782 - 1799”, p.197, Jazzybee Verlag

  8 Copy quote

  Show source