Quotes About Religious Freedom

#1. While I've found many of the religious shows I've viewed over the years not to be to my liking, or in line with my own beliefs, I've never considered it my place to exert any greater type of censorship than changing the channel, or better yet - turning off the TV completely.

Bill Hicks

#2. Freedom is won by relegating religion to a purely private sphere remote from the body politic. In fact, the establishment of a free society is predicated on the idea that religion must be surgically removed from culture.

William Anthony Donohue

#3. Muslim immigrants like himself encounter prejudice here [in U.S.] but also find political and religious freedom.

Tom Gjelten

#4. The traditional Jeffersonian principle of religious freedom was so broadly democratic that it included the right to have no religion at all - it gave to the individual the right to worship any God he chose or no god.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

#5. His Holiness brings a wealth of experience to this exalted office. The United Nations and the Holy See share a strong commitment to peace, social justice, human dignity, religious freedom and mutual respect among the world's religions.

Kofi Annan

#6. While these Christians (the majority in a recent poll) are particularly concerned that religious freedoms are being eroded in this country, they also want Judeo-Christians to dominate the culture,

David Kinnaman

#7. Religious liberty is the first freedom in our Constitution. And whether the cause is justice for the persecuted, compassion for the needy and the sick, or mercy for the child waiting to be born, there is no greater force for good in the nation than Christian conscience in action.

Mitt Romney

#8. We in the United States should be all the more thankful for the freedom and religious tolerance we enjoy. And we should always remember the lessons learned from the Holocaust, in hopes we stay vigilant against such inhumanity now and in the future.

Charlie Dent

#9. Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it.

G.K. Chesterton

#10. Forgiveness of sins is great, but I'd rather have the ability to quit doing the things I keep needing forgiveness for.

D.R. Silva

#11. The roots of India's soft power run deep. India's is a civilization that, over millennia, has offered refuge and, more importantly, religious and cultural freedom, to Jews, Parsis, several varieties of Christians, and Muslims.

Shashi Tharoor

#12. Genghis Khan decreed religious tolerance for all of his conquered peoples. So I think he definitely would approve of our constitutional protections of freedom of religion. I think he would also approve of the way the U.S. has been able to attract talented people from all over the world.

Amy Chua

#13. The fundamentalists of every faith remain blind to the truth that the "sigh within the prayer is the same in the heart of the Christian, the Muslim, and the Jew." I have seen this unity with my eyes, heard it with my ears, felt it with all my being.

David James Duncan

#14. Things happen for reasons that are hidden from us, utterly hidden for us as long as we think they must proceed from what has come before, our guilt or our deserving, rather than coming to us from a future that God in his freedom offers to us.

Marilynne Robinson

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

Harold Laski

#16. These men were religious when the spirit of religion was buried in forms and ceremonies, and when the priesthood had armed itself with the civil powers to put down all opposition, and suppress all freedom, intellectual, civil, and religious.

Ethan A. Hitchcock

#17. The time has now come to amend the Constitution to restore freedom of speech for America's people of faith.

Ralph E. Reed Jr.

#18. Not merely by rules of conduct and religious observances, nor by much learning either, nor even by attainment of concentration, nor by sleeping alone, do I reach the happiness of freedom, to which no worldlings attain. If you have not put an end to compulsions, nurse your faith

Gautama Buddha

#19. Blind faith in belief-system, ideologies, doctrine or dogma can never set us free. Only the knowledge of truth can liberate us from the slavery of doctrine, dogmas, blind faiths and religious sects.

Banani Ray

#20. Responsibility and respect of others and their religious beliefs are also part of freedom.

Horst Koehler

#21. The irony of this is that while believers and non-believers are on opposite sides where religious ideas are concerned they may also find themselves on the same side in the struggle for freedom of belief.

Brian Whitaker

#22. To Americans religious freedom is sacred.

John Travolta

#23. Science is never rigid, it is flexible. It can bend towards any direction that ultimately tends to do good to humanity. Religion must learn the same. And the moment any religion learns that, it would become the most scientific religion in the world.

Abhijit Naskar

#24. Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged

Rumi

#25. No book on this planet can give you the description of terms like religion, spirituality, divinity unless you discover it within the realm of your own mind.

Abhijit Naskar

#26. I believe in religious liberty. I believe in freedom of speech. I believe in working hard and playing by the rules. I'm showing up for work tomorrow.

William J. Clinton

#27. Making Saudi Arabia a world judge on women's rights and religious freedom would be like naming a pyromaniac as the town fire chief.

Hillel Neuer

#28. Unfortunately, we cannot live our lives according to the moral and religious convictions or petrified dogmas of our forebears. We have an obligation to live by our own faith, forever renewing the traditions of the past and adapting them to the demands of own time and place.

Farquhar McHarg

#29. Freedom possesses many meanings. It speaks not merely in terms of political and religious liberty but also in terms of economic and social progress.

Robert Kennedy

#30. We must protect the right of citizens to practice their religions freely. As president, I will support federal and state-level legislation like the Religious Freedom Restoration Acts that protect citizens and their churches from government intrusion.

Carly Fiorina

#31. Religious liberty is about freedom of action in matters of religion generally, and the scope of that liberty is directly correlated to the civil restraints placed upon religious practice.

Clarence Thomas

#32. While we welcome people of all faiths in America we cannot be so naive as to expect all countries to do the same. But we cannot allow their cultural mores to snuff out our religious freedoms or the freedom of women to have equal rights.

Michael Huffington

#33. A Christian must worship the Self as Christ, not Christ as Christ. A Muslim must worship the Self as Mohammed, not Mohammed as Mohammed. A Hindu must worship the Self as Krishna, not Krishna as Krishna.

Abhijit Naskar

#34. I didn't know what to do when I realized that a religion that promised me heaven only seemed to bring me a perpetual hell. I was made to believe that was the normal Christian life; then I heard the gospel.

D.R. Silva

#35. To the ACLU, the First Amendment speaks more directly to freedom from religion than it does to freedom of religion.

William Anthony Donohue

#36. In reviewing the history of the times through which we have passed, no portion of it gives greater satisfaction or reflection, than that which represents the efforts of the friends of religious freedom and the success with which they are crowned.

Thomas Jefferson

#37. 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

#38. the founders concluded, if God himself does not violate the religious freedom of man, then surely government shouldn't either.

David Platt

#39. Decades of destruction, suppression, genocide, sterilization, and political indoctrination could not break the Tibetans' will for freedom, or their deep-rooted religious beliefs. On

Heinrich Harrer

#40. It is the truth of grace and not of the law that brings you true freedom. The truth of the law only binds you. In fact, religious bondage is one of the most crippling bondages with which a person can be encumbered. Religious bondage keeps one in constant fear, guilt, and anxiety.

Joseph Prince

#41. We have the freedom to pray and the freedom to love the God of our heart. And we have been forgiven by the only one who could condemn us. We are truly free.

Max Lucado

#42. And the whole world, the whole world that believes in freedom, whether you're talking about personal freedom, economic freedom, religious freedom, they look to the United States for leadership; and you're part of that leadership.

Don Nickles

#43. Religious freedom, often referred to as the first freedom, is of central import to the American experiment. As such it should feature prominently in U.S. foreign policy.

Frank Wolf

#44. As a preacher who has spent significant time in churches and houses of worship all across the country, I can tell you firsthand that religious liberty and freedom are principles that can never be infringed upon.

Al Sharpton

#45. If there is no laughter, Jesus has gone somewhere else. If there is no joy and freedom, it is not a church: it is simply a crowd of melancholy people basking in a religious neurosis. If there is no celebration, there is no real worship.

Steve Brown

#46. Religious freedom does not mean freedom from religion.

Rick Perry

#47. The more people come together, the more borders will be opened and people and opinions get together, the more unrenouncable tolerance will be a fundamental part of our social life. Without tolerance there is no religious liberty, no freedom of conscience and no freedom of thought.

Thomas Klestil

#48. Freedom sees in religion the companion of its struggles and its triumphs, the cradle of its infancy, the divine source of its rights. It considers religion as the safeguard of mores; and mores as the guarantee of laws and the pledge of its duration.

Alexis De Tocqueville

#49. Divine love is perfect peace and joy, it is a freedom from all disquiet, it is all content and happiness; and makes everything to rejoice in itself.

William Law

#50. Throughout our history Americans have put their faith in God and no one can doubt that we have been blessed for it. The earliest settlers of this land came came in search of religious freedom. Landing on a desolate shoreline, they established a spiritual foundation that has served us ever since.

Ronald Reagan

#51. It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

Voltaire

#52. We see our liberties curtailed more and more and more.We see a tremendous attack on religious freedom.

Rafael Cruz

#53. It is quite unlawful to demand, defend, or to grant unconditional freedom of thought, or speech, of writing or worship, as if these were so many rights given by nature to man.

Pope Leo XIII

#54. Tolerance and freedom of thought are the veritable antidotes to religious fanaticism.

Baron D'Holbach

#55. Who wants to be stuck in being religious and being spiritual either? That's not freedom. You've just exchanged handcuffs for leg irons - which doesn't mean that you should avoid enlightenment.

Frederick Lenz

#56. The concept of religious freedom is largely ignored in the curriculum of our nation's public schools.

Charles Haynes

#57. The freedom or immunity from coercion in matters religious, which is the endowment of persons as individuals, is also to be recognized as their right when they act in community. Religious communities are a requirement of the social nature both of man and of religion itself.

Pope Paul VI

#58. When you move to a new environment with cultural and social characteristics different from your own, it is only logical, that you loosen some of the knots of your religious doctrines, to embrace the new and vivid environment as much as you wish to be embraced by the environment.

Abhijit Naskar

#59. They left their encampment with dirt-covered linen strewn about the abandoned grounds amongst clothes, shoes, children's toys and other discarded belongings. The handcart wheels crunched over them, and the dry wheels screamed as the Willie Company started for Zion.

Sage Steadman

#60. Government employees are public servants and prohibited by the Constitution from inhibiting religious freedom, that is a far cry from sneaking around and into a church and acting like KGB agents.

Mathew Staver

#61. Of course, there are dangers in religious freedom and freedom of opinion. But to deny these rights is worse than dangerous, it is absolutely fatal to liberty.

Harry S. Truman

#62. Religious freedom is too sacred a right to be restricted or prohibited in any degree without convincing proof that a legitimate interest of the state is in grave danger.

Frank Murphy

#63. President Obama's respect for the Constitution does not extend to freedom of religion - his administration has forced religious businessowners to pay for insurance plans that cover activities in violation of religious precepts.

Ben Shapiro

#64. President Obama orders religious organizations to violate their conscience. I will defend religious liberty and overturn regulations that trample on our first freedom.

Mitt Romney

#65. Sometimes it seem like to tell the truth today is to run the risk of being killed. But if I fall, I'll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom. I'm not backing off.

Fannie Lou Hamer

#66. Religious freedom is a fundamental human right.

Pope Francis

#67. We urge all people to recognize that religious freedom requires not trying to use the power of government to force religious ideas on others.

Ed Buckner

#68. At the political level, most Jews and most Catholics have accepted the liberal idea of religious freedom.

David Novak

#69. I come of Quaker stock. My ancestors were persecuted for their beliefs. Here they sought and found religious freedom. By blood and conviction I stand for religious tolerance both in act and in spirit.

Herbert Hoover

#70. In fact, some have said that the clash between Catholicism and Protestantism illustrates the old maxim that religious freedom is the product of two equally pernicious fanaticisms, each cancelling the other out

Fareed Zakaria

#71. In France, religion had been considered the enemy of liberty, but in America, as George Washington expressed it, religion and morality were the 'twin pillars of freedom.'

D. James Kennedy

#72. As with the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, the origins of Shearith Israel trace back to a small group of religious freedom-seekers and a treacherous ocean passage to the New World.

Meir Soloveichik

#73. So natural to mankind is intolerance ... that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realized.

John Stuart Mill

#74. Religious freedom in an open society has the best prospects of flourishing to the extent that it expresses itself as freedom of religious inquiry.

Sidney Hook

#75. Multiculturalism is only in the West. We are absorbing a large number of Muslims in the west and at the same time the Christians and the Jews and other minorities are fleeing the Middle East, churches are being burnt, nobody is talking about it. Where are the religious freedom of the minorities.

Mark Durie

#76. Freedom arises from the multiplicity of sects, which prevades America and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest.

James Madison

#77. The hope of the world is still in dedicated minorities. The trail-blazers in human, scientific and religious freedom have always been in a minority.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#78. I have ever regarded the freedom of religious opinions and worship as equally belonging to every sect.

James Madison

#79. I've fought for religious freedom and I can tell you that anti-gay 'religious freedom' bills aren't it.

DaShanne Stokes

#80. The plan was always to come to America, because Pakistan's a scary place. They don't have religious freedom. It's very poor, and there's a lot of violence and corruption.

Kumail Nanjiani

#81. In Scotland, Catholics have raised their voices against sectarianism and intolerance directed against the Church. Clearly, these actions show that freedom of religious expression, a basic human right, is not upheld in our midst as widely and as completely as it should be.

Keith O'Brien

#82. I can't imagine why a media company views a law preventing the commission of hate speech as a restriction on media freedom, but it is probably similar to how some religious folk view hate speech as being essential to religious freedom.

Christina Engela

#83. Religious tolerance is something we should all practice; however, there have been more persecution and atrocities committed in the name of religion and religious freedom than anything else.

Walter Koenig

#84. It is important that social, political, and religious freedoms grow in China. A society which recognizes religious freedom is a society which will recognize political freedom as well.

George W. Bush

#85. So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.

Voltaire

#86. Somehow freedom for religious expression has become freedom from religious expression.

Dinesh D'Souza

#87. This country was founded by men and women who were dedicated or came to be dedicated to two propositions; first, a strong religious conviction, and secondly a recognition that this conviction could flourish only under a system of freedom.

John F. Kennedy

#88. The Jewish festival of freedom is the oldest continuously observed religious ritual in the world. Across the centuries, Passover has never lost its power to inspire the imagination of successive generations of Jews with its annually re-enacted drama of slavery and liberation.

Jonathan Sacks

#89. I think it's a bill that puts a high priority on religious freedom and recognizes that as a part of the balance.

Asa Hutchinson

#90. Going out on a date was very cheap in those days [1962]. I borrowed my father's station wagon, put in a gallon of gas for 29 cents, went to the movies for 50 cents a ticket, bought a pack of cigarettes for 25 cents, and had a McDonald's hamburger for 19 cents apiece. It was very doable.

Aslan Ben Eliahou

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

Dannel Malloy

#92. Political freedom cannot exist in any land where religion controls the state, and religious freedom cannot exist in any land where the state controls religion.

Sam Ervin

#93. All of our effort should be focused on protecting the religious liberties and freedom of conscience for those Americans that profoundly disagree with the decision.

Carly Fiorina

#94. [ ... ] pluralism implies religious tolerance, not unchecked religious freedom.

Reza Aslan

#95. God holds the power of authentic freedom that both begs and invites us onward to wild liberation.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

#96. Under the rubric of religious freedom, we respect the right to worship differently much more than the right to worship not at all.

Wendy Kaminer

#97. Freedom has only the meaning with which men endow it. It is not enough to pay lip service to the concept of religious liberty. We must pay heart service to it as well, else it remains an empty phrase instead of a living reality.

Kenneth Keating

#98. I had immigrant grandparents who came to this country and came for religious freedom and loved it, never made any money, Bronx, Brooklyn, but loved America. And they told me every day it's the greatest country in the world.

Dan Rosensweig

#99. We are a religious nation because we do not have a state religion, because the government guarantees freedom of religion but has no role in religion, because not only do we tolerate our religious differences, we celebrate them.

Geraldine Ferraro

#100. In our early struggles for liberty, religious freedom could not fail to become a primary object.

Thomas Jefferson