“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.”
“Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.”
Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense.
That which we obtain too easily, we esteem lightly.
Kill the king but spare the man.
It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies; yet our present numbers are sufficient to repel the force of all the world.
THE WORD OF GOD IS THE CREATION WE BEHOLD.
It is not because the right principles have been violated, that they are to be abandoned.
When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
The cause of America is in great measure the cause of all mankind.
The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall.
A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.
The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.
It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man.
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.
The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.
Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the universe still goes on.
Man cannot make principles, he can only discover them.
That government is best which governs least.
Better fare hard with good men than feast it with bad.
But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.
He who dares not offend cannot be honest.
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.
If I do not believe as you believe, it proves that you do not believe as I believe, and that is all that it proves.
Time makes more converts than reason.
My own mind is my own church.
We have it in our power to begin the world over again.