If, to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy . . . to promote universal peace, civilization, and commerce, and to break the chains of political superstition, and raise degraded man to his proper rank; if these things be libellous . . . let the name of libeller be engraved on my tomb

To reason with goverments, as they have existed for ages, is to argue with brutes. It is only from the nations themselves that reforms can be expected

The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion.

Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it.

Suspicion and persecution are weeds of the same dunghill, and flourish best together.

The Allwise Creator hath been dishonored by being made the author of fable and the human mind degraded by believing it.

The circumstances of the world are continually changing, and the opinions of men change also; and as government is for the living, and not for the dead, it is the living only that has any right in it. That which may be thought right and found convenient in one age, may be thought wrong and found inconvenient in another. In such cases, who is to decide, the living, or the dead?