The government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion

Daughter! Get you an honest Man for a Husband, and keep him honest. No matter whether he is rich, provided he be independent. Regard the Honour and moral Character of the Man more than all...

The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that… and all the glory of it.

The people have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge – I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers

I know not whether any man in the world has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs for the last 30 years than Tom Paine.

The most sensible and jealous people are so little attentive to government that there are no instances of resistance until repeated, multiplied oppressions have placed it beyond a doubt that their rulers had formed settled...

It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished.But if innocence itself is...

Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.

So great is my veneration for the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read it the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens of their country and respectable...

My country has, in its wisdom, contrived for me the most insignificant office (the Vice-Presidency) that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived

It ought to be celebrated by pomp and parade, … with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other …

…Turn our thoughts, in the next place, to the characters of learned men. The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. Read over again all the accounts we have of Hindoos, Chaldeans, Persians,...

Power always thinks… that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all his laws.

Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding, and softens the heart

Think of your forefathers! Think of your posterity!

There is in the Congress a collection of the greatest men upon this continent in point of abilities, virtues, and fortunes

From the time we became an independant nation, it was as much a law of nature that this would become our claim as that the Mississippi should flow to sea.

There is nothing in which mankind have been more unanimous [founding nations upon superstition]; yet nothing can be inferred from it more than this, that the multitude have always been credulous, and the few artful....

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion… in private self-defense.

Everyone is stable at this time. If their condition appears to weaken, they will be brought to the hospital and either fed intravenously or nose fed,

If (the) empire of superstition and hypocrisy should be overthrown, happy indeed will it be for the world; but if all religion and morality should be overthrown with it, what advantages will be gained? The...

…Defeat appears to me preferable to total Inaction.

I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.

The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and...

Birth and wealth together have prevailed over virtue and talent in all ages

My critics feel there was a lack of fairness in the opera, because the Palestinians are treated with romantic harmonies and choruses of longing, and the Jews are treated unfairly because all we hear about...

I read my eyes out and can’t read half enough…the more one reads the more one sees we have to read.

Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak.

I am persuaded there is among the mass of our people a fund of wisdom, integrity, and humanity which will preserve their happiness in a tolerable measure

The insanity defense is so rooted in our common law as to be protected under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.

Vanity, I am sensible, is my cardinal vice and cardinal folly; and I am in continual danger, when in company, of being led an ignis fatuus chase by it

Popularity, next to virtue and wisdom, ought to be aimed at; for it is the dictate of wisdom, and is necessary to the practice of virtue inmost

There are persons whom in my heart I despise, others I abhor. Yet I am not obliged to inform the one of my contempt, nor the other of my detestation. This kind of dissimulation…is a...

All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of...

Courage and perseverance have a magic talisman, before which difficulties and obstacles vanish into air.

Mobs will never do to govern states or command armies

Books that cannot bear examination, certainly ought not to be established as divine inspiration by penal laws

He wrote as a young man that God’s noblest gift was the gift of an inquiring mind.

I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning that you...

A democracy is as really a republic as on oak a tree, or a temple a building

Happiness, whether in despotism or democracy, whether in slavery or liberty, can never be found without virtue

I knew I needed to tell this story … and discovered the depth of my ignorance in doing so.

I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any man judge, unless his mind has been opened and enlarged by reading.

Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.

The Pythagorean, as well as the Platonic philosophers, probably concurred in the fabrication of the Christian Trinity

The end of the institution, maintenance, and administration of government is to secure the existence of the body politic; to protect it, and to furnish the individuals who compose it with the power of enjoying,...

Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God...

Politeness, delicacy [and] decency … are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery, and cowardice.