Time makes more converts than reason.
The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.
We can only reason from what is; we can reason on actualities, but not on possibilities.
That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly.
Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.
When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
Is it not a species of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion, when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities.
Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.
The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally payed to the sun.
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be true.
Let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarcy, that in America the law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.
Could the straggling thoughts of individuals be collected, they would frequently form materials for wise and able men to improve into useful matter.
I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered; and the easier repaired when disordered...
That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of Nations is as shocking as it is true...
The declaration which says that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children is contrary to every principle of moral justice.
One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise, she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.