Separation Of Church And State Quotes

The single most prevalent form of child abuse in this country is the act of sending a child to a government school. We worry incessantly about the separation of church and state. We would do well to devote half as much attention to the separation of government and education.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

I believe in the separation of church and state. The government has the right to say what happens in a civil case, like in a court house. And religious people have a right to say what happens in a church congregation. They are two completely separate things.

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.

The Constitution of the U.S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.

And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.

There’s a way to accomplish the separation of church and state and at the same time accomplish the social objective of having America become a hopeful place and loving place.

The current version of… separation of church and state says you can be salt, and you can be light, but only inside the four walls of the church.

I believe in the separation of church and state, but I do not believe in the separation of politics from religion.

Religion mustn’t interfere with the state – so one of the basic Democratic principles as we know it in America is the separation of church and state.

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.

Who does not see that . . . the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?

I think that local school districts – not the federal government – should make the decision about how they teach science, biology, economics. I want my kids to be taught about evolution; I want my kids to be taught about other theories.

As you know, the separation of church and state is not subject to discussion or alteration. Under our Constitution no church or religion can be supported by the U.S. Government. We maintain freedom of religion so that an American can either worship in the church of his choice or choose to go to no church at all.

A man of abilities and character, of any sect whatever, may be admitted to any office of public trust under the United States.

Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can exist apart from religious principle.

The idea of America’s religious groups fighting over the limited public money to be made available takes us down the road towards the kind of sectarian competition that has torn so many nations apart, and which our separation of church and state has spared us.