Quote collection
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"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth."
"Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous. . . ."
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god."
"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."
"I deplore with you the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed, and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them. ... This has in a great degree been produced by the violence and malignity of party spirit."
""It astonishes me to find... [that so many] of our countrymen... should be contented to live under a system which leaves to their governors the power of taking from them the trial by jury in civil cases, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce, the habeas corpus laws, and of yoking them with a standing army. This is a degeneracy in the principles of liberty... which I [would not have expected for at least] four centuries.""
"Born in the same land, we ought to live as brothers, doing to each other all the good we can, and not listening to wicked men, who may endeavor to make us enemies. By living in peace, we can help and prosper one another; by waging war, we can kill and destroy many on both sides; but those who survive will not be the happier for that."
"The Christian god is a being of terrific character - cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust."
"Health is worth more than learning."
"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles."
"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."
"Is it less dishonest to do what is wrong because it is not expressly prohibited by written law? Let us hope our moral principles are not yet in that stage of degeneracy."
"It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good."
"I hope we shall . . . crush in [its] birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations."
"The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do."
"Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it."
"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment."
"An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens."
"Bigotry is the disease of ignorance."