“The opinions and beliefs of men follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds.”

“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have

“We confide in our strength, without boasting of it, we respect that of others, without fearing it.”

“Never spend your money before you have it.”

“When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”

“Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.”

“In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.”

“no people can be both ignorant and free.”

“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”

“Follow truth wherever it may lead you.”

“A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable.”

“...never [enter] into dispute or argument with another. I never saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many, on their getting warm, becoming rude, & shooting one another. ... When I hear another express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, he has a right to his opinion, as I to mine; why should I question it? His error does me no injury, and shall I become a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion? ... There are two classes of disputants most frequently to be met with among us. The first is of young students, just entered the threshold of science, with a first view of its outlines, not yet filled up with the details & modifications which a further progress would bring to their knoledge. The other consists of the ill-tempered & rude men in society, who have taken up a passion for politics. ... Consider yourself, when with them, as among the patients of Bedlam, needing medical more than moral counsel. Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially on politics. In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or principle. They are determined as to the facts they will believe, and the opinions on which they will act. Get by them, therefore, as you would by an angry bull; it is not for a man of sense to dispute the road with such an animal.”

“To the corruptions of christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other.”

“To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”

“Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry.”