When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it.
He is too illiterate, unread, unlearned for his station and reputation.
The Church of Rome has made it an article of faith that no man can be saved out of their church, and all other religious sects approach this dreadful opinion in proportion to their ignorance, and the influence of ignorant or wicked priests.
The Christian Religion as I understand it is the best.
If the way to do good to my country were to render myself popular, I could easily do it. But extravagant popularity is not the road to public advantage.
I am for making of terms annual, and for sending an entire new set every year.
The frightful engines of ecclesiastical councils, of diabolical malice, and Calvinistical good-nature never failed to terrify me exceedingly whenever I thought of preaching.
If the empire of superstition and hypocrisy should be overthrown, happy indeed will it be for the world; but if all religion and morality should be over-thrown with it, what advantage will be gained?
If “Thou shalt not covet,” and “Thou shalt not steal,” were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.
If the multitude is possessed of the balance of real estate, the multitude will have the balance of power, and in that case the multitude will take care of the liberty, virtue, and interest of the multitude in all acts of government.
Set before us the conduct of our own British ancestors, who defended for us the inherent rights of mankind against foreign and domestic tyrants and usurpers, against arbitrary kings and cruel priests; in short against the gates of earth and hell.
The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation.
There never was yet a people who must not have somebody or something to represent the dignity of the state.
Popularity, next to virtue and wisdom, ought to be aimed at; for it is the dictate of wisdom, and is necessary to the practice of virtue inmost.
You are apprehensive of monarchy; I, of aristocracy. I would therefore have given more power to the President and less to the Senate.
I am a revolutionary, so my son can be a farmer, so his son can be a poet.
It would be an absurdity for jurors to be required to accept the judge’s view of the law, against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience.
But America is a great, unwieldy Body. Its Progress must be slow. It is like a large Fleet sailing under Convoy. The fleetest Sailors must wait for the dullest and slowest. Like a Coach and six-the swiftest Horses must be slackened and the slowest quickened, that all may keep an even Pace.
A taste for literature and a turn for business, united in the same person, never fails to make a great man.
I shall have the liberty to think for myself.