Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor - over each other.
Thomas JeffersonIf we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.
Thomas JeffersonI trust there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die a Unitarian.
Thomas JeffersonTaste cannot be controlled by law. We must resist at all costs any attempt to regulate our individual freedoms and to legislate our personal moralities.
Thomas JeffersonIn a world which furnishes so many employments which are useful, and so many which are amusing, it is our own fault if we ever know what ennui [boredom] is, or if we are ever driven to the miserable resource of gaming, which corrupts our dispositions, and teaches us a habit of hostility against all mankind.
Thomas Jefferson