To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work.
Neither Pagan nor Mahamedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion. -quoting John Locke's argument.
I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another.
The second office in the government is honorable and easy the first is but a splendid misery.
I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.
Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of . . . but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and...
All should be laid open to you without reserve, for there is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world.
I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.
The small landholders are the most precious part of a state.
The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government and to protect its free expression should be our first object.
That government is best which governs the least because its people discipline themselves.
No knowledge can be more satisfactory to a man than that of his own frame its parts their functions and actions.
An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.
If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spi...
Everything is useful which contributes to fix in the principles and practices of virtue.
I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man's milk and restorative cordial.
I cannot live without books.