Thomas Jefferson Quotes

Religious freedom should work two ways: we should be free to practice the religion of our choice, but we must also be free from having someone else's religion practiced on us.

Let them be reassured, it has never been one of our intentions to ban religion in society, but solely to protect the national education system from any conspicuous display of religious affiliation.

There's no religious test in our country, and there shouldn't be. We're an open, competitive society.

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.

Many people are trying to remove religion from public life. Under the banner of pluralism, cultural and political leaders are seeking to push all talk about God out of the public arena.

Among the features peculiar to the political system of the United States, is the perfect equality of rights which it secures to every religious sect.

No citizen enjoys genuine freedom of religious conviction until the state is indifferent to every form of religious outlook from Atheism to Zoroastrianism.

Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives.

The prevailing notion is that the state should be neutral as to religion, and furthermore, that the best way to be neutral about it is to avoid all mention of it. By this sort of logic, nudism is the best compromise among different styles of dress. The secularist version of 'pluralism' amounts to theological nudism.

The modern public school derived from a philosophy of freedom reflected in the First Amendment ... The non-sectarian or secular public school was the means of reconciling freedom in general with religious freedom.

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.

What is especially important is addressing the question of how religion can be enforced through political means and what can be done to create a political environment that, on the one hand, acknowledges the role of religion in society, while on the other hand does not impose one religion on the populace at the expense of all others.

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.

In Holland, they have come to precisely the same conclusion. There they have adopted a system of secular education, because they have found it impracticable to unite the religious bodies in any system of combined religious instruction.

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 a Catholic, how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners how to vote.... I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant or Jewish ... for while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew—or a Quaker—or a Unitarian—or a Baptist.

No religion deserves a privileged place in American life—not even my own.

No religious consensus is possible in the United States, and to impose one would be both unconstitutional and unjust.

In a pluralistic society, public schools are places for persons of all faiths and none. Schools may neither promote nor denigrate any religion.

The [public] school’s approach to religion is academic, not devotional. • The school strives for student awareness of religions, but does not press for student acceptance of any religion. • The school sponsors study about religion, not the practice of religion. • The school may expose students to a diversity of religious views, but may not impose any particular view. • The school educates about all religions; it does not promote or denigrate religion. • The school informs students about various beliefs; it does not seek to conform students to any particular belief.

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

My earnest regard to preserve inviolate forever, in our new empire, the great principle of religious freedom ... which is independent of any religious doctrine and not restrained by any.

Leave the matter of religion to the family alter, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and the State for ever separate.

I am for freedom of religion, & against all maneuvres to bring about the legal ascendency of one sect over another.

Freedom arises from a multiplicity of sects, which pervades America, and which is the best and only security for religious liberty.