No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination.
Thomas JeffersonI see the necessity of sacrificing our opinions sometimes to the opinions of others for the sake of harmony.
Thomas JeffersonThe day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.
Thomas JeffersonThe constitutional freedom of religion is the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights
Thomas JeffersonThe clergy ... believe that any portion of power confided to me [as President] will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion.
Thomas Jefferson