In transgressing the law of nature, the offender declares himself to live by another rule than that of reason and common equity.

Thirdly, the supreme power cannot take from any man any part of his property without his own consent: for the preservation of property being the end of government, and that for which men enter into society, it necessarily supposes and requires, that the people should have property, without which they must be supposed to lose that, by entering into society, which was the end for which they entered into it; too gross an absurdity for any man to own.

I have spent more than half a lifetime trying to express the tragic moment.

To give a man full knowledge of morality, I would send him to no other book than the New Testament.

Knowledge is grateful to the understanding, as light to the eyes.

The first step to get this noble and manly steadiness, is... carefully keep children from frights of all kinds, when they are young. ...Instances of such who in a weak timorous mind, have borne, all their whole lives through, the effects of a fright when they were young, are every where to be seen, and therefore as much as may be to be prevented.

I find every sect, as far as reason will help them, make use of it gladly: and where it fails them, they cry out, It is a matter of faith, and above reason.