Liberty is the great parent of science and of virtue; and a nation will be great in both in proportion as it is free.

This is perhaps the most important statement on religion ever made. It clarified the intent of the founders of the constitution irrespective of the attempts of modern day religious revisionists.

The most uninformed mind with a healthy body is happier than the wisest valetudinarian.

I acknowledge that such a debt [of service to my fellow-citizens] exists, that a tour of duty in whatever line he can be most useful to his country, is due from every individual. It is not easy perhaps to say of what length exactly that tour should be, but we may safely say of what length it should not be. Not of our whole life, for instance, for that would be to be born a slave-not even of a very large portion of it.

Honesty is the first chapter in the Book of wisdom. Let it be our endeavor to merit the character of a just nation.

Every Christian sect gives a great handle to Atheism by their general dogma that, without a revelation, there would not be sufficient proof of the being of god.

Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science by rendering them my supreme delight.