“I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another.”

Never trouble another with what you can do yourself.

History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and opressions of the body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

If you want something you’ve never had, You must be willing to do something you’ve never done.

When angry, count 10. before you speak; if very angry, 100.

Let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident.

Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

Think as you please, and so let others, and you will have no disputes.

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.

I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country

The equal rights of man, and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.

What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment and death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment

A reminder that your free time is not free.

I want to be free like a bird, I will fly. In you I will find freedom, for you the sky.

I’m gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we’re not being controlled, we’ll just do what we want.

The only way to live free, the only way to live your life as an offering of love, is to feel everything fully and live open.

I would rather have peaceful isolation than divided freedom. Read that again.

There is nothing wrong with going to bed with someone of your own sex. People should be very free with sex, they should draw the line at goats.

He lives as if death will never come to him, but he dies as if he had never been born.

Since death will take us anyway, why live our life in fear? Why not die in our old ways and be free to live?