Robert H. Jackson Quotes

Religious and civil liberty are best protected by unbounded freedom of thought.

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 practice faith or not, and those who believe are free and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief.

Freedom of the press and of religious opinion should be inviolate.

We cannot permit any inquisition either within or without the law or apply any religious test to the holding of office. The mind of America must be forever free.

No political party can or ought to exist when one of its corner-stones is opposition to freedom of thought and to the right to worship God.

This wicked system is based on freedom of religion and belief and freedom of speech and separation of religion and politics. Democracy is heresy itself.

The First Amendment does not select any one group or any one type of religion for preferred treatment.

The First Amendment freedom of religion is as important today as when the Bill of Rights was first written.

It seems that the right of freedom of speech that was enshrined in numerous constitutions is now under attack by religious institutions.

Resist this war on God, freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

Political freedom is a political reading of the Bible.

The framers of our Constitution meant we were to have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

I believe that freedom of speech and freedom of religion go hand-in-hand in America.

The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

I'm just confused as to where we lost that in America because it is everyone's God-given right to think the way they think and that's fine. That's why our ancestors came here to America, to believe what they want, pray how they want and follow a religion with whoever they want.

It belongs to American liberty to separate entirely the institution which has for its object the support and diffusion of religion from the political government.

Political freedom cannot exist in any land where religion controls the state, and religious freedom cannot exist in any land where the state controls religion.

The freedom allowed in the United States to all sorts of inquiry and discussion necessarily leads to a diversity of opinion, which is seen not only in their being different denominations, but different opinions also in the same denomination.

All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All separated from government, are compatible with liberty.

Resolved, That we especially protest against this present attempt to force all the people to follow the religious dictates of a part of the people, as establishing a precedent for the entrance of a most dangerous complicity between Church and State, thereby subtly undermining the foundation of liberty, so carefully laid by the wisdom of our fathers.

If the Chief Magistrate of a nation may be an irreligious man, with impunity, who may not?

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance, or admit a right in inquiry into the religious opinions of others.

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.

Unbelievers in this country have rights but they don’t have the right to veto everybody else.

We stand for a free church in a free state. Neither one should control the affairs of the other. We support the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, with its "establishment" and "free exercise" clauses.