What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.

Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication- after that it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it can not be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to ME, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.

The declaration which says that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children is contrary to every principle of moral justice.

Let them call me rebel, and welcome, I feel no concern from it.

When authors and critics talk of the sublime, they see not how nearly it borders on the ridiculous.

To live with our enemies as if they may some time become our friends, and to live with our friends as if they may some time become our enemies, is not a moral but a political maxim