Everyone must act according to the dictates of his own reason.

The soil is the gift of God to the living.

The metaphysical insanities of Athanasius, of Loyola, and of Calvin, are, to my understanding, mere lapses into polytheism, differing from paganism only by being more unintelligible.

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.

A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.

I considered 4 of these bills [of the revised code of Virginia] as forming a system by which every fibre would be eradicated of antient or future aristocracy; and a foundation laid for a government truly republican.

Amplification is the vice of modern oratory. It is an insult to an assembly of reasonable men, disgusting and revolting instead ofpersuading. Speeches measured by the hour, die by the hour.