Precisely because the Inquisition provides a blueprint for…

“Indeed, the greatest single innovation of the Spanish Inquisition was to turn heresy from a thought-crime into a blood-crime...”

— Jonathan Kirsch

“...the workings of the Inquisition did not fundamentally change over its six-hundred-year history. The Inquisition was a machine with interchangeable parts, just as its…

— Jonathan Kirsch

“No offense against moral order was too trivial to escape the attention of the Spanish Inquisition.”

— Jonathan Kirsch

“The important question to ask is why these bodies are allowed to exist. If a country such as Spain allowed a repressive body like…

— Cullen Murphy

If you compare the United States with Europe, my view is that what happened in Europe is that the church became deeply distrusted by…

— John Rawls

Intolerance has always been one of the cornerstones of Christianity - the glorious heritage of the Inquisition. It's no coincidence that most of my…

— Madalyn Murray O'Hair

The Christians who engaged in infamous persecutions and shameful inquisitions were not evil men but misguided men. The churchmen who felt they had an…

— Martin Luther King, Jr

After the survivor of the Spanish conquest has told his life's story he is convicted by the Inquisition: He posted no brief in defense…

— Gary Jennings

“pro scienta atque sapienta-Latin- for science and wisdom It's a Darwinian popularity contest. at all times, the question on everyone's mind is, "who's coolest?"…

— Ned Vizzini

Institutional psychiatry is a continuation of the Inquisition. All that has really changed is the vocabulary and the social style. The vocabulary conforms to…

— Thomas Szasz

A prisoner in the Inquisition is never allowed to see the face of his accuser, or of the witnesses against him, but every method…

— John Foxe

You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and more profound has been the dogmatic belief,…

— Bertrand Russell

Where there is no danger of overt action there is rarely any interference with freedom. That is why there has so often been amazing…

— Walter Lippmann

If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let him alone.

— Thomas Hardy

From Augustine down, theologians have tried to compel people to accept their special interpretation of the Scripture, and the tortures of the inquisition, the…

— Matilda Joslyn Gage