The United States should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy.

- George Washington

In justice, too, to our excellent Constitution, it ought to be observed, that it has not placed our religious rights under the power of any public functionary.

- Thomas Jefferson

God enters by a private door into every individual.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

There can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven.

- Robert G. Ingersoll

I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.

- Thomas Paine

Those who want the government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide.

- Harry S Truman

True religion, like our founding principles, requires that the rights of the disbeliever be equally acknowledged with those of the believer.

- A. Powell Davies

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.

- Isaac Asimov

I'm a committed Christian. I worship in my own way. That's my business. That's not the business of the pharisees who are going to preach to me about what I do and then do something else.

- Howard Dean

You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense, I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist.

- Pat Robertson

Not a direct quote from Sinclair Lewis, but a description of Sinclair's point in It Can't Happen Here, in which both nationalism and religion play a part.

- attributed to Sinclair Lewis

People place their hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution. They don't put their hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.

- Jamie Raskin

No religion can long continue to maintain its purity when the church becomes the subservient vassal of the state.

- Felix Adler

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.

- Barry Goldwater

The United States government must not undertake to run the Churches. When an individual, in the Church or out of it, becomes dangerous to the public interest he must be checked.

- Abraham Lincoln

We will be a better country when each religious group can trust its members to obey the dictates of their own religious faith without assistance from the legal structure of their country.

- Margaret Mead



This second vision is our vision. It is the vision of a free society. We must be bold enough to proclaim it and strong enough to defend it against all its enemies.

- Rabbi Sherwin Wine



Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.

- Robert F. Kennedy



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 the Women's Suffrage platform

- Susan B. Anthony



Religious experiences which are as real as life to some may be incomprehensible to others.

opinion, United States v. Ballard, 1944

- William O. Douglas



Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.

- Ulysses S. Grant



We believe that an ethical faith need not, and indeed cannot, be grounded in any one way. It is not that we are indifferent to questions about the ultimate nature and meaning of things. Far from it. It is that we believe the universe far too vast to be comprehended in its inner-most core or in its totality by any one person or by all people together. It is that we believe there is room for a great many differing interpretations of everything that is, and still may be. It is that we believe the justification of any religious faith, including an ethical faith, is not to be found in its grounding (important as this is for each of us individually), but in its consequences.

- Jerome Nathanson



Whatever is Christian is legal; whatever is not is illegal.

president of Wallbuilders, Inc. quoting William Penn's 1681 PA constitution

- David Barton



Indeed, the Founders mentioned the pagan authors in so many heartfelt speeches, pamphlets and letters that today's sweeping references to America's "Christian" roots and "Judeo-Christian heritage" ought to be amended. Maybe these terms should be reserved to explain the traditional religions and morality of individuals, families, congregations, small communities. Politically, our notions of virtue and vice have had another genesis.

column in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution

- Colin Campbell



Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.

letter to Connecticut Baptists

- Thomas Jefferson



The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg.

- Thomas Jefferson



Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?

Memorial and Remonstrance

- James Madison



...There is no such thing as ... separation of state and church ... in the Constitution. It's a lie of the left.

- Pat Robertson



We are different from previous generations of conservatives. We are no longer working to preserve the status quo. We are radicals, working to overturn the present power structure of this country.

- Paul Weyrich



... I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag and to the Savior, for whose Kingdom it stands, one Savior, crucified, risen, and coming again, with life and liberty for all who believe.

- Dan Quayle