Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus....I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.

I... [am] convinced [man] has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

The whole history of these books (i.e. the Gospels) is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.

Amplification is the vice of modern oratory.

[T]he people seem to have deposited the monarchical and taken up the republican government with as much ease as would have attended their throwing off an old and putting on a new suit of clothes.

I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.

Government is being founded on opinion, the opinion of the public, even when it is wrong, ought to be respected to a certain degree.