James Madison Quotes

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.

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

If this spirit shall ever be so far debased, as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature, as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate any thing but liberty.

Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption

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?

Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history.

[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

A bad cause seldom fails to betray itself.

Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.