Skip to content
quotesby

BECAUSE no People can be truly happy, though under the greatest Enjoyment of Civil Liberties, if abridged of the Freedom of their Consciences, as to their Religious Profession and Worship: And Almighty God being the only Lord of Conscience, Father of Lights and Spirits; and the Author as well as Object of all divine Knowledge, Faith and Worship, who only doth enlighten the Minds, and persuade and convince the Understandings of People, I do hereby grant and declare, That no Person or Persons, inhabiting in this Province or Territories, who shall confess and acknowledge One almighty God, the Creator, Upholder and Ruler of the World; and profess him or themselves obliged to live quietly under the Civil Government, shall be in any Case molested or prejudiced, in his or their Person or Estate, because of his or their conscientious Persuasion or Practice, nor be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious Worship, Place or Ministry, contrary to his or their Mind, or to do or suffer any other Act or Thing, contrary to their religious Persuasion.

William Penn#6

FreedomReligionGovernanceConscienceRightsToleranceCivil liberties

About this quote

What does it mean?
True happiness requires religious freedom alongside civil liberties, as conscience belongs to God alone.
In plain terms
People need freedom to worship as they choose to be truly happy.
What can you take from it?
Protect religious liberty to ensure genuine human happiness.

Where it applies

  • drafting constitutions
  • policy making
  • human rights advocacy

Putting it to work

  • legal advocacy
  • constitutional design
  • interfaith dialogue

Questions to consider

  • How do you balance religious freedom with public order?
  • What limits, if any, should exist on conscience?

Another view

Absolute religious freedom can conflict with other civil rights in practice.

More from William Penn

  1. Any government is free to the people under it where the laws rule and the people are a party to the laws.

    Permalink to quote #5
  2. All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences; no man can of right be compelled to a…

    Permalink to quote #7
  3. Men being born with a title to perfect freedom and uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature... no one can be put out of his…

    Permalink to quote #4

Related quotes

  1. I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance, or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.

    Thomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson quote #45
  2. It is the will and command of God that (since the coming of his Son the Lord Jesus) a permission of the most paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or antichristian consci…

    Roger WilliamsRoger Williams quote #8
  3. That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violen…

    Patrick HenryPatrick Henry quote #13