The possession of facts is knowledge; the use of them is wisdom.

The opinions and beliefs of men follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds.

While the farmer holds the title to the land, actually, it belongs to all the people because civilization itself rests upon the soil.

I hope that we have not labored in vain, and that our experiment will still prove that men can be governed by reason.

What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.... [Instead] reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free enquiry must be indulged; and how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves?

Establish the eternal truth that acquiescence under insult is not the way to escape war.

No one, I hope, can doubt my wish to see... all mankind exercising self-government, and capable of exercising it. But the question is not what we wish, but what is practicable.