“Virtue is not hereditary.”

Government is best which governs least.

From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms! Through the land let the sound of it flee; Let the far and the near all unite, with a cheer, In defense of our Liberty Tree.

The Bible is a book that has been read more and examined less than any book that ever existed.

The slavery of fear had made men afraid to think.

When all other rights are taken away, the right of rebellion is made perfect.

Christianity is the strangest religion ever set up, for it committed a murder upon Jesus in order to redeem mankind from the sin of eating an apple.

Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.

Every person of learning is finally his own teacher.

Those who expect to reap the blessing of freedom must undertake to support it.

Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.

When extraordinary power and extraordinary pay are allotted to any individual in a government, he becomes the center, round which every kind of corruption generates and forms.

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

Practical religion consists in doing good: and the only way of serving God is that of endeavoring to make His creation happy. All preaching that has not this for its object is nonsense and hypocrisy.

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.

Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.

A son can bear with equanimity the loss of his father, but the loss of his inheritance may drive him to despair.

Barbarism is not the inheritance of our pre-history. It is the companion that dogs our every step.

My mother told me I was blessed, and I have always taken her word for it. Being born of – or reincarnated from – royalty is nothing Like being blessed. Royalty is inherited from another human being; blessedness comes from God.

Happiness and joy are inner qualities that can’t be shaken by outer circumstances because they are inherent within the core Self.

That which we acquire with the most difficulty we retain the longest; as those who have earned a fortune are usually more careful of it than those who have inherited one.

The mental ability to concentrate is inherent to all; it is not extraordinary or mysterious. Meditation is not something that a Yogi has to teach you; you already have the ability to shut out thoughts.

The art of medicine cannot be inherited, nor can it be copied from books

Let the meek inherit the earth — they have it coming to them.