I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any man judge, unless his mind has been opened and enlarged by reading.

There are persons whom in my heart I despise, others I abhor. Yet I am not obliged to inform the one of my contempt, nor the other of my detestation. This kind of dissimulation...is a necessary branch of wisdom, and so far from being immoral...that it is a duty and a virtue.

Griefs upon griefs! Disappointments upon disappointments. What then? This is a gay, merry world notwithstanding.

God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.

Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion.

We must not then depend alone upon the love of liberty in the soul of man for its preservation.

Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers and destroyers press upon them so fast that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachments is to, grow every day more encroaching; like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour.