State Religion - States/Countries Without A State Religion

Famous quotes containing the words states, countries, state and/or religion:

“An ... important antidote to American democracy is American gerontocracy. The positions of eminence and authority in Congress are allotted in accordance with length of service, regardless of quality. Superficial observers have long criticized the United States for making a fetish of youth. This is unfair. Uniquely among modern organs of public and private administration, its national legislature rewards senility.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)

“Fame sometimes hath created something out of nothing. She hath made whole countries more than nature ever did, especially near the poles, and then hath peopled them likewise with inhabitants of her own invention, pigmies, giants, and amazons: yea, fame is sometimes like unto a mushroom, which Pliny recounts to be the greatest miracle in nature, because growing and having no root, as fame no ground of her reports.”
—Thomas Fuller (1608–1661)

“Feign then what’s by a decent tact believed
And act that state is only so conceived,
And build an edifice of form
For house where phantoms may keep warm.”
—William Empson (1906–1984)

“We seem to be pariahs alike in the visible and the invisible world, with no foothold anywhere, though by every principle of government and religion we should have an equal place on this planet.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)