The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.
Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.
One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
Persecution is not an original feature in any religion but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.
When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace.
Time makes more converts than reason.
Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.
Is it not a species of blasphemy to call the New Testament revealed religion, when we see in it such contradictions and absurdities.
Every religion is good that teaches man to be good and I know of none that instructs him to be bad.
He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.
Reputation is what men and women think of us character is what God and angels know of us.
Those who want to reap the benefits of this great nation must bear the fatigue of supporting it.
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Human nature is not of itself vicious.
Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best stage, is but a necessary evil in its worst state an intolerable one.
The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.
It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.
Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be true.
If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.
But such is the irresistable nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants is the liberty of appearing.
These are the times that try men's souls.
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
That God cannot lie, is no advantage to your argument, because it is no proof that priests can not, or that the Bible does not.
We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes.
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.
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.