The Church was resolved to have a New Testament, and as, after the lapse of more than three hundred years, no handwriting could be proved or disproved, the Church, which like former impostors had then gotten possession of the State, had everything its own way. It invented creeds, such as that called the Apostle's Creed, the Nicean Creed, the Athanasian Creed, and out of the loads of rubbish that were presented it voted four to be Gospels, and others to be Epistles, as we now find them arranged.

Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself.

When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.

No falsehood is so fatal as that which is made an article of faith.

Nothing but heaven is impregnable to vice.

We can only reason from what is; we can reason on actualities, but not on possibilities.

...the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.