War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen circumstances that no human wisdom can calculate the end; it has but one thing certain, and that is to increase taxes.
To say that any people are not fit for freedom, is to make poverty their choice, and to say they had rather be loaded with taxes than not.
That God cannot lie, is no advantage to your argument, because it is no proof that priests can not, or that the Bible does not.
Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.
All the tales of miracles, with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and fools to believe.
Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.
Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.
It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.
The greatest remedy for anger is delay.
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.