Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.

It has been the scheme of the Christian Church, and of all the other invented systems of religion, to hold man in ignorance of the Creator, as it is of Government to hold man in ignorance of his rights. The systems of the one are as false as those of the other, and are calculated for mutual support.

As to the book called the bible, it is blasphemy to call it the Word of God. It is a book of lies and contradictions and a history of bad times and bad men.

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

It has been the political career of this man to begin with hypocrisy, proceed with arrogance, and finish with contempt

Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.

When I contemplate the natural dignity of man; when I feel (for Nature has not been kind enough to me to blunt my feelings) for the honor and happiness of its character, I become irritated at the attempt to govern mankind by force and fraud, as if they were all knaves and fools, and can scarcely avoid disgust at those who are thus imposed upon.