No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever.
Interpretation
No individual should be forced to participate in or contribute to religious practices.
This quote expresses the principle of religious freedom and the idea that belief should be a personal choice, free from coercion. It emphasizes the importance of individual liberty in matters of faith and reinforces the separation of church and state.
In practice
During a speech on civil liberties, one might quote Jefferson to emphasize the importance of respecting diverse beliefs.
The firmness with which the (American) people have withstood the... abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false and to form a correct judgment between them.
I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared
βWe must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements...if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that, will require unremitting vigilance.
A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
The natural function of the wing is to soar upwards and carry that which is heavy up to the place where dwells the race of gods. More than any other thing that pertains to the body it partakes of the nature of the divine.
I fear that too many have sadly surrendered their agency to the adversary and are saying by their conduct, 'I care more about satisfying my own desires than I do about bearing the Savior's power to bless others.'
Clever gimmicks of mass distraction yield a cheap soulcraft of addicted and self-medicated narcissists.
If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.
There is no such thing as a good tax.
When a man takes an oath... he's holding his own self in his own hands. Like water.
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