Men fight for freedom; then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves.
Difficulties indeed sometimes arise; but common sense and honest intentions will generally steer through them.
Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.
A free government is of all others the most energetic.
Hemp is one of the greatest, most important substances of our nation.
Christian creeds and doctrines, the clergy’s own fatal inventions, through all the ages has made of Christendom a slaughterhouse, and divided it into sects of inextinguishable hatred for one another.
That one hundred and fifty lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse in any country. If it were, the laws would lose their effect, because it can always be pretended.
If we cannot secure all our rights, let us secure what we can.
The sheep are happier of themselves, than under the care of wolves.
The olive tree is surely the richest gift of Heaven. I can scarcely expect bread.
No man has done everything he can who has done only his best.
Though written constitutions may be violated in moments of passion or delusion, yet they furnish a text to which those who are watchful may again rally and recall the people; they fix too for the people the principles of their political creed.
Is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than that of face and stature.
Unmerited abuse wounds, while unmerited praise has not the power to heal.
The declaration that religious faith shall be unpunished does not give immunity to criminal acts dictated by religious error.
If a sect arises whose tenets would subvert morals, good sense has fair play and reasons and laughs it out of doors without suffering the State to be troubled with it.
If anything pass in a religious meeting seditiously and contrary to the public peace, let it be punished in the same manner and no otherwise than as if it had happened in a fair or market.
The metaphysical insanities of Athanasius, of Loyola, and of Calvin, are, to my understanding, mere lapses into polytheism, differing from paganism only by being more unintelligible.
From the dissensions among Sects themselves arise necessarily a right of choosing and necessity of deliberating to which we will conform. But if we choose for ourselves, we must allow others to choose also, and so reciprocally, this establishes religious liberty.