Frances Wright Quotes

I tell them I have worked 40 years to make the W.S. platform broad enough for Atheists and Agnostics to stand upon, and now if need be I will fight the next 40 to keep it Catholic enough to permit the straightest Orthodox religionist to speak or pray and count her beads upon. (on women's suffrage)

American Protestants do not have to believe in God because they believe in belief. That is why we have never been able to produce an interesting atheist in America.

Well, you know, Thomas Jefferson, who was the author of the Declaration of Independence said he wouldn't have any atheists in his cabinet because atheists wouldn't swear an oath to God. That was Jefferson and we have never had any Muslims in the cabinet.

I'm really an honorary Jew, you know; all the best people are. I really do feel Jewish, even though I'm a Catholic. The way the Church has been behaving, I'm happy to be Jewish.

Look not to the size of cathedrals or even to the words on the statute books for proof of the reality of religious freedom. Ask what is the fate of the Protestant in Spain, the Jew in Saudi Arabia, the Arab in Israel, the Catholic in Poland or the atheist in the United States?

From the dissensions among Sects themselves arise necessarily a right of choosing and necessity of deliberating to which we will conform. But if we choose for ourselves, we must allow others to choose also, and so reciprocally, this establishes religious liberty.

There is no compulsion in religion.

I am perfectly clear in my mind and in my conscience in respect of freedom of religious principles and beliefs.

We're not all Christian, so we can't be a Christian band.

When I said during my presidential bid that I would only bring Christians and Jews into the government, I hit a firestorm. 'What do you mean?' the media challenged me. 'You're not going to bring atheists into the government? How dare you maintain that those who believe in the Judeo-Christian values are better qualified to govern America than Hindus and Muslims?' My simple answer is, 'Yes, they are.'

A recent Pew Study revealed that 70% of Americans with a religious affiliation say that many religions lead to eternal life. Some people might think that "surely the statistics among evangelical Christians is different." Not by much.

There are five billion human beings and in a certain way I think we need five billion different religions.

We may think all religions beneficial, and believe of one alone that it is true.

The media challenged me. 'You're not going to bring atheists into the government? How dare you maintain that those who believe the Judeo-Christian values are better qualified to govern America than Hindus and Muslims?' My simple answer is, 'Yes, they are.'

I am surrounded here by parsons and methodists, but as you will see, not infested with the mania.

I'm not against religion in the sense that I feel I can't tolerate it, but I think written into the rubric of religion is the certainty of its own truth. And since there are 6,000 religions currently on the face of the earth, they can't all be right. And only the secular spirit can guarantee those freedoms and it's the secular spirit that they contest.

Religious tolerance. No! Zero tolerance for any type of religion.

Well, the correct answer is he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?

If there is one thing for which we stand in this country, it is for complete religious freedom, and it is an emphatic negation of this right to cross-examine a man on his religion before being willing to support him for office.

In the past 10,000 years, humans have devised roughly 100,000 religions based on roughly 2,500 gods. So the only difference between myself and the believers is that I am skeptical of 2,500 gods whereas they are skeptical of 2,499 gods. We're only one God away from total agreement.

There's practically no religion that I know of that sees other people in a way that affirms the others' choices. But in our century we're forced to think about a pluralistic world.

But I'm in favor of every religion with the possible exception of snake-chunking. Anybody that so presumes on how he stands with Providence that he will let a snake bite him, I say he deserves what he's got coming to him.

I am a sort of collector of religions: and the curious thing is that I find I can believe in them all.

Most people I know I think agree and even many theists agree with this. We don't want government involved. When atheists become the majority in this country, I don't think the theists are going to be glad to have "one nation under no God" inserted in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I don't affiliate myself with any specific religious group. I connect to different ritualistic aspects of different belief systems, and I see the connecting thread between all religious beliefs.