James Bryce Quotes

We do not want an official state church. If ninety-nine percent of the population were Catholics, I would still be opposed to it. I do not want civil power combined with religious power.

I believe in the separation of church and state... We all have our own religious beliefs. There are people out there who are atheists, who don't believe at all... They are all citizens of Minnesota and I have to respect that.

Government needs to stay out of the religion business altogether.

The only way to be true to our American tradition is to maintain absolute governmental neutrality regarding religious beliefs and practices.

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.

There is little doubt that religious liberty is best exercised within the setting of the secular state.

We want no religious or anti-religious political parties.

Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than on opinions in physics or geometry.

The freedom of all faiths, and non faiths, is best protected when government does not give its blessings to any.

You are free, free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed - that has nothing to do with the business of the State …. the first duty of a government is to maintain law and order, so that life, property and religious beliefs of its subjects are fully protected by the State

I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.

Kennedy believed in religious liberty and the separation of church and state. He did not believe in the right of elected officials to impose their religious views on others. He was the first Catholic ever elected president, and he spent much of the 1960 campaign defending his religion and assuring voters he would not take orders from the Vatican.

Whatever one's religion in his private life may be, for the officeholder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution and all its parts - including the First Amendment and the strict separation of church and state.

It is not the legitimate province of the Legislature to determine which religion is true, or what false. Our government is a civil, and not a religious institution.

I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.

I believe that religion should be totally separated from the state. That's not the way it is today, not even in Sweden.

What other nations call religious toleration, we call religious rights. They are not exercised in virtue of governmental indulgence, but as rights, of which government cannot deprive any portion of citizens, however small.

In America you have the right to worship any way you choose. That's why virtually every faith and every denomination on Earth has a presence in our land. You have a right to not believe in God at all.

Though there are laws against blasphemy and insult to religion in many European countries, France has institutionalised its anti-clerical past by proscribing religion from public life.

No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion.

I choose to worship not believing in God and government should not thrust a religious idea down my throat.

The problem is that you can't impose the church's teachings on all Americans as a matter of law.

The restriction of religion to private life therefore does not necessarily threaten the vital interests of the majority religion, if there is one, and it protects minority religions from tyranny of the majority.

Our Constitution recognises no other power than that of persuasion, for enforcing religious observances.

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