I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it.

No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of...

Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.

If, therefore, from the settlement of the Saxons, to the introduction of Christianity among them, that system of religion could not be a part of the common law, because they were not yet Christians;...

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will...

There exists indeed an opposition to it {} by the friends of William and Mary, which is not strong. The most restive is that of the . In this the Presbyterian clergy take the lead. The tocsin is...

What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment and death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment . . . inflict on...

. . . The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised...

It is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the...

The equal rights of man, and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade but in the sunshine of life; & thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine. I will recur for proof to the days...

The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs... In fact, the Athanasian paradox...

When once we quit the basis of sensation, all is in the wind. To talk of existences is to talk of . To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are , or that there is no...

When we see religion split into so many thousand of sects, and I may say Christianity itself divided into its thousands also, who are disputing, anathematizing and where the laws permit burning and...

As you say of yourself, I too am an . I consider the genuine {not the imputed} doctrines of as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.{}

...it is not to be understood that I am with him {Jesus} in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist, he takes the side of spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin....

I write nothing for publication, and last of all things should it be on the subject of religion. , for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the...

I agree with yours of the 22d that . but we cannot always do what is absolutely best. those with whom we act, entertaining different views, have the power and the right of carrying them into practice....

I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccesful rebellions indeed generally establish the incroachments...

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves ; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the...

...vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of '76 now look to a single and splendid government of an Aristocracy, founded on...

I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid...

...legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make...

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing.

I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in catholic countries they are to Atheism. , , , , are...

History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.