Thomas Jefferson Quotes

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.

What other nations call religious toleration, we call religious rights.

With us, the State is undoubtedly on solid ground in refusing to decide what type of religion is best for society. Society is left free to work out the problem. And here is a curious and pertinent matter for remark: that the Stale is the only department of civilization which, by common consent, is denied this privilege.

The right to religious freedom is not a gift of the state or a gift of a group.

We do not want to live in a theocracy. We should maintain that barrier and government has no business telling someone what they ought to believe or how they should conduct their private lives.

I think we recognize as Americans there are certain things that are just primary to the freedoms and liberties that we enjoy here and religious freedom is one of the most important things we as Americans cherish.

Religious freedom is already protected in the United States. It's in our Constitution. It's in most state constitutions.

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

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

The 1st Amendment was established to ensure, in addition to free exercise, that the state did not have the power to establish any particular religious teaching.

Americans deserve to have their religious beliefs and practices protected. Religious freedom is too important to be trampled by insensitive bureaucracy or bad policy.

I'm a religious liberty supporter - I strongly believe in that.

The state has not only the obligation to stay neutral in matters of religion but also to ensure that freedom of thought and conscience of all individuals is protected.

People of faith should not invoke the power of the state to decide what everyone can believe or think or read or do. In such cases, like abortion or prayer or prohibition or sexual identity, the proper role of religion is to appeal to the free conscience of each person, not the coercive rule of secular law.

I believe in the American tradition of separation of church and state which is expressed in the First Amendment to the Constitution. By my office - and by personal conviction - I am sworn to uphold that tradition.

Religious freedom is a fundamental human right.

The safest way for a state is to lay down the rule that religion is comprised solely in the exercise of charity and justice, and that the rights of rulers in sacred, no less than in secular matters, should merely have to do with actions, but that every man should think what he likes and say what he thinks.

Those who accept freedom of religion as a right are obligated by this acceptance to take the maintenance of freedom of religion as a duty.

There is not a truth to be gathered from history more certain, or more momentous, than this: that civil liberty cannot long be separated from religious liberty without danger, and ultimately without destruction to both. Wherever religious liberty exists, it will, first or last, bring in and establish political liberty.

..the establishment of Civil and Religious Liberty was the Motive that induced me to the field of battle.

Government has no Right to hurt a hair of the head of an Atheist, for his Opinions. Let him have a care of his Practices.

The civil rights of none, shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext infringed.

The establishment of Civil and Religious Liberty was the Motive which induced me to the Field - the object is attained - and it now remains to be my earnest wish & prayer, that the Citizens of the United States could make a wise and virtuous use of the blessings placed before them.

America is a country founded on religious freedom and liberty.

The opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous falacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty...