Sects Quotes

• I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Change, Religious, Religion

  Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution : Annotated Correspondence”, p.143, Algora Publishing

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• Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Differences, Office

  Thomas Jefferson, Jean M. Yarbrough (1963). “The Essential Jefferson”, p.128, Hackett Publishing

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• Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Children, Hypocrite

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia II, Correspondence 1782-1786”, p.80, Cosimo, Inc.

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• What has been the effect of [religious] coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Hypocrite, Errors

  Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”

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• This modesty in a sect is perhaps a singular instance in the history of mankind, every other sect supposing itself in possession of all truth, and that those who differ are so far in the wrong ; like a man traveling in foggy weather, those at some distance before him on the road he sees wrapped up in the fog, as well as those behind him, and also the people in the fields on each side, but near him all appears clear, tho' in truth he is as much in the fog as any of them.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Distance, Men, Weather

  "Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin".

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• The multiplication of individual sects should not fool us: the important point is that the whole of America is preoccupied with the sect as a moral institution, with its immediate demand for beatification, its material efficacity, its compulsion for justification, and doubtless also with its madness and frenzy.

  Jean Baudrillard

  America, Important, Demand

  Jean Baudrillard (1989). “America”, p.91, Verso

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• Preachers dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Faith Religion, Daylight, Witch

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• If they are good workmen, they may be from Asia, Africa or Europe; they may be Mahometans, Jews or Christians of any sect, or they may be Atheists.

  George Washington

  Christian, Atheist, Europe

  "Letters and Addresses".

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• Among the features peculiar to the political system of the United States, is the perfect equality of rights which it secures to every religious sect.

  James Madison

  Religious, Rights, Perfect

  James Madison (1867). “1816-1828”, p.179

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• Those who are enslaved to their sects are not merely devoid of all sound knowledge, but they will not even stop to learn!

  Galen

  Inspirational, Science, Sound

  Galen, Arthur John Brock (1991). “On the natural faculties”, Loeb Classical Library

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• 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 Jefferson

  Religious, Reading, School

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• The novelist must look on humanity without partiality or prejudice. His sympathy, like that of the historian, must be unbounded, and untainted by sect or party.

  Goldwin Smith

  Sympathy, Party, Humanity

  Goldwin Smith (1881). “Lectures and Essays”, New York : Macmillan

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• I have been judged vehemently suspect of heresy, that is, of having held and believed that the sun in the centre of the universe and immoveable, and that the earth is not at the center of same, and that it does move. Wishing however, to remove from the minds of your Eminences and all faithful Christians this vehement suspicion reasonably conceived against me, I abjure with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and detest the said errors and heresies, and generally all and every error, heresy, and sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church. (Quoted in Shea and Artigas 194)

  Galileo Galilei

  Christian, Moving, Heart

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• After their return from Babylon, the practice of human sacrifice died out among the Jews, but survived as an ideal in one of its break-away sects, which believed that God accepted the torture-sacrifice of an innocent man in exchange for not visiting a worse fate on the rest of humanity. The sect is called Christianity.

  Steven Pinker

  Fate, Sacrifice, Men

  Steven Pinker (2011). “The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence In History And Its Causes”, p.205, Penguin UK

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• By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion... .

  Samuel Chase

  Christian, Government, Separation Of Church And State

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• Sects differ more in name than tenets.

  Honore de Balzac

  Names, Religion

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• There is nothing I congratulate myself on more heartily than on never having joined a sect.

  Desiderius Erasmus

  Desiderius Erasmus (1964). “The "Adages" of Erasmus: A Study with Translations”, Cambridge University Press

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• A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Party, Men, Thinking

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Heart of Emerson's Journals”, p.49, Courier Corporation

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• Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave a paradise for a sect.

  John Keats

  Dream, Paradise, Positive Atheism

  'The Fall of Hyperion' (written 1819) l. 1

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• The doctrine which, from the very first origin of religious dissensions, has been held by bigots of all sects, when condensed into a few words and stripped of rhetorical disguise, is simply this: I am in the right, and you are in the wrong. When you are the stronger, you ought to tolerate me; for it is your duty to tolerate truth. But when I am the stronger I shall persecute you; for it is my duty to persecute error.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Religious, Errors, Atheism

  "Critical and Miscellaneous Essays". Book by Thomas Babington Macaulay Baron Macaulay, p. 60, 1843.

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• A general loathing of a gang or sect usually has some sound basis in instinct.

  Ezra Pound

  Sound, Loathing, Gang

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• To a zealot every one of his own sect is a saint, while the most upright of a different sect are to him children of perdition.

  Henry Home, Lord Kames

  Children, Different, Saint

  Henry Home (lord Kames.) (1817). “Elements of criticism [by H. Home].”, p.139

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• It was under a solemn consciousness of the dangers from ecclesiastical ambition, the bigotry of spiritual pride, and the intolerance of sects... that is was deemed advisable to exclude from the national government all power to act upon the subject.

  Joseph Story

  Spiritual, Ambition, Pride

  Joseph Story (1833). “Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States: With a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional History of the Colonies and States, Before the Adoption of the Constitution”, p.702

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• God is universal; confined to no spot, defined by no dogma, appropriated by no sect.

  Mary Baker Eddy

  Dogma, Spots, Universal

  Mary Baker Eddy (1968). “Christian Science Sentinel”

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• A self-conscious society will therefore endeavor to limit sect forming by providing for the widest possible diffusion of secular knowledge.

  Edward Alsworth Ross

  Religious, Self, Liberty

  Edward Alsworth Ross (1920). “The Principles of Sociology”

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