The error seems not sufficiently eradicated, that the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body, are subjects to the coercion of the laws. But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we...

books are indeed with me a necessary of life; and since I ceded my library to Congress I have been annually importing from Paris.

3. ... Mr Jefferson said that the Epicurean philosophy came nearest to the truth, in his opinion, of any antient system of philosophy—But that it had been misunderstood and misrepresented—He wished the work of Gassendi concerning it had been translated—It was the only accurate account of it...

I too am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing every thing rational in moral philosophy which Greece & Rome have left us. Epictetus indeed has given us what was good of the Stoics; all beyond, of their doctrines dogmas, being hypocrisy and...

I will never believe that man is incapable of self-government; that he has no resources but in a master, who is but a man like himself, and generally a worse man, inasmuch as power tends to deprave him.

the human mind will some day get back to the freedom it enjoyed 2000 years ago. this country, which has given to the world the example of physical liberty, owes to it that of moral emancipation also. for, as yet, it is but nominal with us.

Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error. ... Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free enquiry must be indulged; and how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves. [Query XVII, “Religion”]

in a republican nation whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance.

Bonaparte, with his repeated derisions of Ideologists (squinting at this author) has by this time felt that true wisdom does not lie in mere practice without principle.

every man’s own reason must be his oracle.