Roger Williams (theologian) (1603–1684) English Protestant theologian and founder of the colony of Providence Plantation
As quoted in The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom (1991) edited by Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr
The History of Freedom in Christianity (1877)
Roger Williams (theologian) (1603–1684) English Protestant theologian and founder of the colony of Providence Plantation
As quoted in The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom (1991) edited by Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr
“If the true spark of religious and civil liberty be kindled, it will burn.”
Daniel Webster (1782–1852) Leading American senator and statesman. January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852. Served as the Secretary of Sta…
Address on Laying the Cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument (1825)
Context: If the true spark of religious and civil liberty be kindled, it will burn. Human agency cannot extinguish it. Like the earth's central fire, it may be smothered for a time; the ocean may overwhelm it; mountains may press it down; but its inherent and unconquerable force will heave both the ocean and the land, and at some time or other, in some place or other, the volcano will break out and flame up to heaven.
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician
Speech in the House of Commons (18 March 1829) in favour of Catholic Emancipation, quoted in George Henry Francis, Opinions and Policy of the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B., M.P., &c. as Minister, Diplomatist, and Statesman, During More Than Forty Years of Public Life (London: Colburn and Co., 1852), pp. 84-85.
1820s
Context: I reverence, as much as any one can do, the memory of those great men who effected the Revolution of 1688, and who rescued themselves and us from the thraldom of religious intolerance, and the tyranny of arbitrary power; but I think we are not rendering an appropriate homage to them, when we practice that very intolerance which they successfully resisted, and when we withhold from our fellow-subjects the blessings of that Constitution, which they established with so much courage and wisdom.... that great religious radical, King William... intended to raise a goodly fabric of charity, of concord, and of peace, and upon which his admirers of the present day are endeavouring to build the dungeon of their Protestant Constitution. If the views and intentions of King William had been such as are now imputed to him, instead of blessing his arrival as an epoch of glory and happiness to England, we should have had reason to curse the hour when first he printed his footstep on our strand. But he came not here a bigoted polemic, with religious tracts in one hand, and civil persecution in the other; he came to regenerate and avenge the prostrate and insulted liberties of England; he came with peace and toleration on his lips, and with civil and religious liberty in his heart.
John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian
As quoted in England in the Eighteenth Century (1714 - 1815) (1964) by J. H. Plumb, p. 94
General sources
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
Context: Liberty is the condition of progress. Without Liberty, there remains only barbarism. Without Liberty, there can be no civilization.
If another man has not the right to think, you have not even the right to think that he thinks wrong. If every man has not the right to think, the people of New Jersey had no right to make a statute, or to adopt a constitution — no jury has the right to render a verdict, and no court to pass its sentence.
In other words, without liberty of thought, no human being has the right to form a judgment. It is impossible that there should be such a thing as real religion without liberty. Without liberty there can be no such thing as conscience, no such word as justice. All human actions — all good, all bad — have for a foundation the idea of human liberty, and without Liberty there can be no vice, and there can be no virtue.
Without Liberty there can be no worship, no blasphemy — no love, no hatred, no justice, no progress.
Take the word Liberty from human speech and all the other words become poor, withered, meaningless sounds — but with that word realized — with that word understood, the world becomes a paradise.
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778) British politician
Letter to the Bishop of Gloucester William Warburton (October 1762), quoted in W. S. Taylor and J. H. Pringle (eds.), Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham: Vol. II (London: John Murray, 1838), p. 188
1760s
Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher
Speech in Philadelphia (1776)
Nicholas Murray Butler (1862–1947) American philosopher, diplomat, and educator
Address The bell is ringing
Liberty-Equality-Fraternity (1942)
Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)
1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)