A state of things in which a large portion of the most active and inquiring intellects find it advisable to keep the genuine principles and grounds of their convictions within their own breasts, and attempt, in what they address to the public, to fit as much as they can of their own conclusions to premises which they have internally renounced, cannot send forth the open, fearless characters, and logical, consistent intellects who once adorned the thinking world.

Everything must be free to be written and published without restraint.

Accordingly, France Had Voltaire, and his school of negative thinkers, and England (or rather Scotland) had the profoundest negative thinker on record, David Hume: a man, the peculiarities of whose mind qualified him to detect failure of proof, and want of logical consistency, at a depth which French skeptics, with their comparatively feeble powers of analysis and abstractions stop far short of, and which German subtlety alone could thoroughly appreciate, or hope to rival.

I am not aware that any community has a right to force another to be civilized.

Among the works of man, which human life is rightly employed in perfecting, the first in importance surely is man himself.

So Long as we do not harm others we should be free to think, speak, act, & live as we see fit, without molestation from individuals, law, or gov't.

In this age, the man who dares to think for himself and to act independently does a service to his race.