The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and in-grafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.

Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.

The diffusion of information and the arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public reason, I deem [one of] the essential principles of our government, and consequently [one of] those which ought to shape its administration.

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.

Take more pleasure in giving what is best to another than in having it for yourself, and then all the world will love you.

For an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.