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

What more does man want to know than that the hand or power that made these things is divine, is omnipotent? Let him believe this with the force it is impossible to repel, if he permits his reason to act, and his rule of moral life will follow of course.

Government is a necessary evil

It is far better that we admitted a thousand devils to roam at large than that we permitted one such imposter and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the Bible prophets, to come with the pretended word of God and have credit among us.

The choicest gift of God to man, the gift of reason; and having endeavoured to force upon himself the belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls it human reason; as if man could give reason to himself.

To say that any people are not fit for freedom, is to make poverty their choice, and to say they had rather be loaded with taxes than not.

Truth never envelops itself in mystery, and the mystery in which it is at any time enveloped is the work of its antagonist, and never of itself.