Quote Atlassourced quotes & context
Source identified
The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man;
Read & copy the quotation
“The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man;”

James Madison

Source
Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, 20 June 1785
Date
1785
Meaning

Meaning of “The Religion then of every man must be…”

Madison argues that religious belief and practice should follow individual conviction rather than civil compulsion.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, represented by Founders Online / National Archives. Madison wrote against a proposed Virginia assessment supporting teachers of Christianity. The sentence is historical religious-liberty argument, not current legal advice.

Primary / edition source ↗

Customize your imageTen designs · Square or portrait · Preview and share
Themes

Ideas connected with this quotation

FreedomShortThought-Provoking Quotes That Invite ReflectionPoliticsReasonReligionRights
Related quotations

Continue through nearby ideas

Source identified
The Understanding can never be convinc'd, nor properly submit, but by such Arguments, as are rational, perswasive, and sutable to its own Nature;
Image design Charcoal
Read & copy

“The Understanding can never be convinc'd, nor properly submit, but by such Arguments, as are rational, perswasive, and sutable to its own Nature;”

William Penn · The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience Once More Briefly Debated & Defended · 1670
Voice: Authorial / signed preface voice · William Penn
Meaning & context

Penn argues that belief cannot genuinely be produced by external force; conviction must address the mind through reasons capable of answering its doubts and objections.

Source details

The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience (1670), represented by the CELT / University College Cork transcription. Original-period spelling is retained. Penn is making a seventeenth-century Quaker argument against coercion in religion; the record is historical political-religious thought, not current legal advice.

Source identified
The toleration of those that differ from others in matters of religion is so agreeable to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to the genuine reason of mankind, that it seems monstrous for men to be so blind as not to perceive the necessity and advantage of it in so clear a light.
Image design Lavender
Read & copy

“The toleration of those that differ from others in matters of religion is so agreeable to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to the genuine reason of mankind, that it seems monstrous for men to be so blind as not to perceive the necessity and advantage of it in so clear a light.”

John Locke · A Letter Concerning Toleration · 1689
Meaning & context

Locke argues that religious difference should not by itself justify coercion or persecution, grounding toleration both in his reading of Christianity and in a broader appeal to human reason.

Source details

A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), public-domain text also preserved in The Works of John Locke. Locke immediately distinguishes civil government from religion and argues that persecution should not be disguised as care for souls. His historical position had limits, so this page does not present the letter as a complete modern theory of equal religious freedom.

Source identified
If all Men are born Free, how is it that all Women are born Slaves?
Image design Midnight
Read & copy

“If all Men are born Free, how is it that all Women are born Slaves?”

Mary Astell · Some Reflections Upon Marriage · 1706
Meaning & context

Astell turns the language of natural freedom back on a social order that treats women as naturally subordinate, exposing a contradiction between political liberty and domestic domination.

Source details

Some Reflections Upon Marriage, Appendix in the fourth-edition text represented by Project Gutenberg #61143. The edition states that the preceding edition’s extended Preface was moved to the end as an Appendix; there Astell asks, “If all Men are born Free, how is it that all Women are born Slaves?” while challenging claims of natural male supremacy. It is early-modern feminist political-religious polemic, not a literal equation of every form of historical slavery.

Source identified
In every human Breast, God has implanted a Principle, which we call Love of Freedom;
Image design Golden Hour
Read & copy

“In every human Breast, God has implanted a Principle, which we call Love of Freedom;”

Phillis Wheatley · Letter to the Reverend Samson Occom · 1774
Meaning & context

Wheatley argues from shared human nature that love of liberty is not limited by race, directly challenging the contradiction between professed freedom and slavery.

Source details

Letter to the Reverend Samson Occom, February 11, 1774, published in the Connecticut press and represented by the National Constitution Center. Wheatley’s explicitly religious and natural-rights argument condemns oppression while speaking from the historical context of Atlantic slavery.

Source identified
Law is reason without desire.
Image design Charcoal
Read & copy

“Law is reason without desire.”

Aristotle · Politics: A Treatise on Government · 4th century BCE
Meaning & context

Good law is idealized as judgment governed by reason rather than by the changing appetites or personal passions of an individual ruler.

Source details

Politics: A Treatise on Government, Book III, Chapter XVI, William Ellis translation; represented through the 1912 Dent witness / Project Gutenberg #6762. In comparing rule by a person with rule by law, Aristotle says that passion can affect even the best rulers and concludes that law is reason without desire.

Source identified
This Fourth of July is yours, not mine.
Image design Coastal
Read & copy

“This Fourth of July is yours, not mine.”

Frederick Douglass · What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? · 1852
Meaning & context

Douglass exposes the exclusion within a national celebration of liberty when enslaved people are denied the freedom and rights being publicly commemorated.

Source details

Frederick Douglass, Oration delivered in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, July 5, 1852, reviewed against the public-domain Wikisource transcription of the original oration. 'This Fourth July is yours, not mine' follows Douglass's contrast between the audience's national independence and the exclusion of enslaved Black Americans; it remains abolitionist indictment, not generic patriotism.