Thomas Jefferson Quotes

I’m trying to be a real Muslim, who respects others and respects the freedom of the people to choose their own religious denominations or even to not believe in God in the first place.

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)

For all of the creeds are false, and all of the creeds are true; And low at the shrines where my brothers bow, there will I bow too; For no form of a god, and no fashion Man has made in his desperate passion, But is worthy some worship of mine; Not too hot with a gross belief, Nor yet too cold with pride, I will bow me down where my brothers bow, Humble, but open eyed.

America is a very religious nation. Not a mono-religious nation because there are many different strands of belief, but there's something about this nation that inspires people, or perhaps draws people, who are strongly idealistic.

This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are.

We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers.

Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.

I lead a multi-faith life.

God requireth not a uniformity of religion.

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

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

every human being is free to embrace and profess that religion which, led by the light of reason he/she believes to be true…. in our time it is no longer convenient to have the Catholic religion as the only religion to the exclusion of any other religion.

When national leaders address the people of Fiji in specifically Christian terms, whatever the occasion, nearly half of our people are excluded. When prayer in mixed company is uttered in terms of a purely Christian God, we unintentionally omit and diminish others present of different faiths.

… to claim the President of the United States must hold your theological position is absurd. He is President of the United States of America not the President of the Baptist convention or Bishop of the Sanctified or Holiness Church. He is called to protect the rights of Jew and Gentile, male and female, young and old

It is certainly no part of religion to compel religion.

I shall be very careful to preserve and maintain the Act of Toleration, and to set the minds of all my people at quiet; my own principles must always keep me entirely firm to the interests and religion of the Church of England, and will incline me to countenance those who have the truest zeal to support it.

Catholics and Protestants remained faithful to their religions, but stopped thinking of them in zero-sum terms and gradually embraced the separation between church and state.

My parents were Christians - Catholics, but not in the close-minded sense. I remember my mother to be a very pious woman, but she was never against other religions.

With our goddess, the Pachamama, and it is not possible to continue having a monopoly of religious faith, only Catholic. We have therefore adopted the new constitution as a secular state where all religious beliefs will be respected.

Even though our society is increasingly pluralistic, we must ensure an equal playing field rather than a religiously cleansed arena where people of faith are no longer welcome.

The decision for complete religious freedom and for separation of church and state in the eyes of the rest of the world was perhaps the most important decision reached in the New World. Everywhere in the western world of the 18th century, church and state were one; and everywhere the state maintained an established church and tried to force conformity to its dogma.

Here we now have the freedom of all religions, and I hope that never again will we have a repetition of religious bigotry, as we have had in certain periods of our own history. There is no room for that kind of foolishness here.

We are for religion against the religions.

Nowhere have the forces of intolerance been displayed less tolerantly than in the area of religious speech and practice.

The great tradition of America is one where people can worship the way they want to worship. And if they choose not to worship, they're just as patriotic as your neighbor. That is an essential part of why we are a great nation. If you're a Jew or a Christian or a Muslim, you're equally American.