The greatest calamity which could befall us would be submission to a government of unlimited powers.

There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.

The executive, in our government is not the sole, it is scarcely the principle, object of my jealousy. The tyranny of the legislature is the most formidable dread at present and will be for many years. That of the executive will come in its turn, but it will be at a remote period.

I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature.

A little rebellion now and then... is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.

On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarrelling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.