When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.

The liberty of the whole earth was depending on the issue of the contest, and was ever such a prize won with so little innocent blood?

Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion.

We must meet our duty and convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies.

It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.

Religious leaders will always avail themselves of public ignorance for their own purpose.

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.