in the spring he will attend your botanical course. his natural turn is very strongly to the objects of your two courses of lectures, and I hope you will have reason to be contended with his capacity & character.

Truth can stand by itself...If there be but one right [religion], and [Christianity] that one, we should wish to see the nine hundred and ninety-nine wandering sects gathered into the fold of truth.

Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.

I value peace, and I should unwillingly see any event take place which would render war a necessary resource.

Certain teachings in the Bible are as diamonds in a dung-heap.

I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude

Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree (for all forbid us to steal, murder, plunder, or bear false witness), and that we should not intermeddle with the particular dogmas in which all religions differ, and which are totally unconnected with morality.