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.

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.

Health is value greater than studying.

In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer for their purposes.

We need a revolution every 20 years just to keep government honest.

If your letters are as long as the bible, they will appear short to me. Only let them be brim full of affection.

Paper is poverty, it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself.