Harold J. Laski: “What really was in question was the nature of the State's power over the Church.”

The intolerance may be Catholic, when it insists that a unity of outlook is essential for the preservation of society; or it may be Protestant when, as with Calvin and the Socinians, it holds that the blasphemous nature of the belief…

Each age makes some idol in its own image and sacrifices upon its altar the freedom of those who refuse it worship.

The essence of the persecuting position is always that the persecutor has hold of truth and that he would betray its service by allowing it to be questioned.

Each age finds that the incidence of freedom is significant at some special point, and there, once more, the lesson of freedom has to be learned.