"The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion."
― George Washington (1732 to 1799)
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826), letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
"A share in two revolutions is living to some purpose."
― Thomas Paine (1737 to 1809)
"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
― Thomas Paine (1737 to 1809), The Age of Reason
"All persons shall have full and free liberty of religious opinion; nor shall any be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious institution."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826), 1776
"Among the most detestable villains in history, you could not find one worse than Moses. Here is an order, attributed to 'God' to butcher the boys, to massacre the mothers and to debauch and rape the daughters. I would not dare so dishonor my Creator's name by (attaching) it to this filthy book (the Bible)."
― Thomas Paine (1737 to 1809)
"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."
― Benjamin Franklin (1706 to 1790)
"And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."
― James Madison (1751 to 1836) in a letter to Edward Livingston in 1822
"As priestcraft was always the enemy of knowledge, because priestcraft supports itself by keeping people in delusion and ignorance, it was consistent with its policy to make the acquisition of knowledge a real sin."
― Thomas Paine (1737 to 1809), Of The Religion of Deism Compared With the Christian Religion
"As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion . . . has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the Truth with less trouble."
― Benjamin Franklin (1706 to 1790)
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826) to the Danbury Baptist Association on Jan. 1, 1802, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson Memorial Edition, edited by Lipscomb and Bergh, 1903-04, 16:281
"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State."
― Thomas Jefferson (in a letter to S. Kercheval, 1810)
"But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed."
― John Adams (1735 to 1826) in a letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816, 2000 Years of Disbelief, John A. Haught
"But the Church of Rome having set up its new religion, which it called Christianity [but which in truth is Athanasianism/Constantinism], and invented the creed which it named the Apostles's Creed, in which it calls Jesus the only son of God, conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary; things of which it is impossible that man or woman can have any idea, and consequently no belief but in words; and for which there is no authority but the idle story of Joseph's dream in the first chapter of Matthew, which any designing imposter or foolish fanatic might make."
― Thomas Paine (1737 to 1809), on Deism
"But there are times when men have serious thoughts, and it is at such times, when they begin to think, that they begin to doubt the truth of the Christian religion; and well they may, for it is too fanciful and too full of conjecture, inconsistency, improbability and irrationality, to afford consolation to the thoughtful man. His reason revolts against his creed. He sees that none of its articles are proved, or can be proved."
― Thomas Paine (1737 to 1809)
"Christianity . . . (has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man. . . . Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and imposters led by Paul, the first great corruptor of the teaching of Jesus."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826), Six Historic Americans by John E. Remsberg
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
― First Amendment to the U.S.A. Constitution
"Deliver me from your cold phlegmatic preachers, politicians, friends, lovers and husbands. "
― Abigail Adams (1744 to 1818), letter to John Adams
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
― James Madison (1751 to 1836), A Memorial and Remonstrance,
2000 Years of Disbelief by James A. Haught
"Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and all of which facilitates the execution of mischievous projects. Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded project."
― James Madison (1751 to 1836), 2000 Years of Disbelief by James A. Haught
"Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet; as if the way to God was not open to every man alike."
― Thomas Paine, 'The Age of Reason'
"He (the Rev. Mr. Whitefield) used, indeed, sometimes to pray for my conversion, but never had the satisfaction of believing that his prayers were heard."
― Benjamin Franklin (1706 to 1790)
"Here it is that the religion of Deism is superior to the Christian Religion. It is free from all those invented and torturing articles that shock our reason or injure our humanity, and with which the Christian religion abounds. Its creed is pure, and sublimely simple. It believes in God, and there it rests."
― Thomas Paine (1737 to 1809), Of The Religion of Deism Compared With the Christian Religion
"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 political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826) to Baron von Humboldt in 1813, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson Memorial Edition, edited by Lipscomb and Bergh, 14:21
"How can women with no formal education teach their children?"
― Abigail Adams (1744 to 1818)
"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved--the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!"
― John Adams (1735 to 1826) in a letter to Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826)
"I am determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may find myself. For I have learned that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition."
― Martha Dandridge Custis Washington (1731 to 1802)
"I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826) to Elbridge Gerry, 1799, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson Memorial Edition, edited by Lipscomb and Bergh, 1903-04, 10:78
"I can never join with my voice in the toast which I see in the papers attributed to one of our gallant naval heroes. I cannot ask of heaven success, even for my country, in a cause where she should be in the wrong. Fiat justitia, pereat coelum. My toast would be, may our country always be successful, but whether successful or otherwise, always right."
― John Quincy Adams (1767 to 1848)
"I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it."
― Benjamin Franklin (1706 to 1790), Articles Of Belief and Acts of Religion, Nov.20, 1728
"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826) in a letter to Samuel Miller, 1808
"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof', thus building a wall of separation between church and State."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826), letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT. The Complete Jefferson by Saul K. Padover, pp 518-519
"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of...Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."
― Thomas Paine (1737 to 1809), Excerpts from The Age of Reason: Selected Writings of Thomas Paine, edited by Richard Emery Robers, NY, Everybody's Vacation Publishing Co, 1945, p.342
"(I have been) denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious that I am no Christian."
― Ethan Allen
"I have had [a wagon] filled with ... the most valuable portable articles belonging to the house.... I insist on waiting until the large picture of General Washington is secured.... It is done! And the precious portrait placed in the hands of two gentlemen of New York, for safe keeping."
― First Lady Dolley Payne Todd Madison (1768 to 1849), preparing to evacuate the White House before it was seized and burned by British troops attacking from their fleet in Chesapeake Bay
"I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826), letter to William Short, Six Historic Americans by John E. Remsberg
I found this [Socratic] method the safest for myself and very embarrassing to those against whom I used it; therefore, I took delight in it, practiced it continually, and grew very artful and expert in drawing people, even of superior knowledge, into concessions the consequences of which they did not foresee, entangling them in difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so obtaining victory that neither myself nor my causes always deserved."
― Benjamin Franklin (1706 to 1790), Papers
"I know it will give great offense to the clergy, but the advocate of religious freedom is to expect neither peace no forgiveness from them."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826) to Levi Lincoln, 1802, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson Memorial Edition, edited by Lipscomb and Bergh, 10:305
"I wish it (Christianity) were more productive of good works ... I mean real good works ... not holy day keeping, sermon-hearing ... or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments despised by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity."
― Benjamin Franklin (1706 to 1790), The Works of Benjamine Franklin Vol.VII, p.75
"I would not dare to so dishonor my Creator God by attaching His name to that book (the Bible)."
― Thomas Paine (1737 to 1809)
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826), letter to Archibald Stuart (1791)
"I would rather fight with my hands than my tongue."
― Dorthea "Dolley" Payne Todd Madison
"If everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking."
― Benjamin Franklin (1706 to 1790)
"If we look back into history for the character of the present sects of Christianity, we shall find few that have not in turns been persecutors and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution on the Roman church, but practiced it on the Puritans. They found it wrong in Bishops, but fell into the practice both here (England) and in New England"
― Benjamin Franklin (1706 to 1790), Poor Richard, 1758
"In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer for their purposes."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826), in a letter to Horatio Spofford, 1814; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 371)
"In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current."
― Thomas Jefferson
"In the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation. That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why, then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity? Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your sex; regard us then as Beings placed by Providence under your protection, and in imitation of the Supreme Being make use of that power only for our happiness."
― Abigail Adams (1744 to 1818), letter to John Adams
"Individual liberty is individual power, and as the power of a community is a mass compounded of individual powers, the nation which enjoys the most freedom must necessarily be in proportion to its numbers the most powerful nation."
― John Quincy Adams (1767 to 1848)
"It is one of my sources of happiness never to desire a knowledge of other people's business."
― Dolley Payne Todd Madison (1768 to 1849)
"It may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will best be guarded against by an entire abstinence of the Government from interference in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect against trespasses on its legal rights by others."
― James Madison (1751 to 1836), James Madison on Religious Liberty, edited by Robert S. Alley
"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."
― Benjamin Franklin (1706 to 1790), Poor Richard, 1758
"Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity [of opinion]. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826), Notes on the State of Virginia (1781-85), Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
"Never confuse motion with action"
― Benjamin Franklin (1706 to 1790)
". . . no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise . . . affect their civil capacities."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826), Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Julron P. Boyd, 1950, 2:546
"No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826), Elementary school Act, 1817, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson Memorial Edition, edited by Lipscomb and Bergh, 10:305
"Now, which am I to believe, a book that any impostor might make and call the Word of God, or the creation itself which none but an Almighty Power could make? For the Bible says one thing; and the creation says the contrary. The Bible represents God with all the passions of a mortal, and the creation proclaims him with all the attributes of a God."
― Thomas Paine (1737 to 1809)
"Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is none more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid or produces only atheists or fanatics. As an engine of power, it serves the purposes of despotism, and as a means of wealth, the avarice of priests, but so far as respects the good of man in general it leads to nothing here or hereafter."
― Thomas Paine (1737 to 1809)
"Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst."
― Thomas Paine (1737 to 1809)
"On the dogmas of religion as distinguished from moral principals, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyong the comprehension of the human mind."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826)
"One of the embarrassing problems for the early nineteenth-century champions of the Christian faith was that not one of the first six Presidents of the United States was an orthodox Christian."
― The Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1968, p. 420
" . . . our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry"
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826), Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Julron P. Boyd, 1950, 2:545
"Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all law-religions, or religions established by law."
― Thomas Paine (1737 to 1809), The Rights of Man, 1791, ed P.S. Foner, 1945
"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because if there be one, He must approve the homage of Reason rather than that of blindfolded Fear."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826) in a letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787, 2000 Years of Disbelief by James A. Haught
"Religion I found to be without any tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm morality, serves principally to divide us and make us unfriendly to one another."
― Benjamin Franklin (1706 to 1790)
"Say nothing of my religion. It is known to my god and myself alone."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826), in a letter to John Adams, 11 January 1817, in Lester Cappon, ed. The Adams-Jefferson Letters, (1959) p. 506
"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blind faith."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826)
"Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first a patron, the last a punisher."
― Thomas Paine (1737 to 1809) the opening line of Common Sense (1776)
"That Jesus Christ was not God is evidenced from his own words."
― Ethan Allen (1738 to 1789)
"The adulterous connection between church and state."
― Thomas Paine (1737 to 1809), from The Age of Reason
"The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system."
― Thomas Paine (1737 to 1809), 2000 Years of Disbelief, James A. Haught
"The christian religion is a parody on the worship of the Sun, in which they put a man whom they call Christ, in the place of the Sun, and pay him the same adoration which was originally paid to the Sun."
― Thomas Paine (1737 to 1809)
"The Civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the TOTAL SEPARATION OF THE CHURCH FROM THE STATE."
― James Madison (1751 to 1836)
"The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves...these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826)
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826) (letter to J. Adams April 11,1823)
"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity."
― John Adams (1735 to 1826)
"The doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity."
― John Adams (1735 to 1826)
"The fumes of the most disordered imaginations were recorded in their religious code, as special communications of the Deity; and as it could not but happen that, in the course of ages, events would now and then turn up to which some of these vague rhapsodies might be accommodated by the aid of allegories, figures, types, and other tricks upon words, they have not only preserved their credit with the Jews of all subsequent times, but are the foundation of much of the religions of those who have schismatised from them."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826), letter to William Short, August 4, 1820, describing the religion of the Jews which was inculcated on Jesus from his infancy, and explaining a possible motive for Jesus wanting to reform that religion
"The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God, like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826), in a letter to James Smith
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826), Notes on Virginia, Jefferson the President: First Term 1801-1805, Dumas Malon, Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1970, p. 191
"The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826)
"The proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826), Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Julron P. Boyd, 1950, 2:546
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."
― Benjamin Franklin (1706 to 1790), Poor Richard, 1758
"There has in the different parts and ages of the world, been a multiplicity of immediate and wonderful discoveries, said to have been made to godly men of old by the special illumination or supernatural inspiration of God, every of which have, in doctrine, precept and instruction, been essentially different from each other, which are consequently as repugnant to truth, as the diversity of the influence of the spirit on the multiplicity of sectaries has been represented to be. These facts, together with the premises and inferences as already deduced, are too evident to be denied, and operate conclusively against immediate or supernatural revelation in general; nor will such revelation hold good in theory any more than in practice."
― Ethan Allen
"These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or in the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by the scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman."
― Abigail Adams (1744 to 1818), letter to John Quincy Adams
"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826), Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Julron P. Boyd, 1950
"Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!"
― John Adams (1735 to 1826)
"What influence in fact have Christian ecclesiastical establishments had on civil society? In many instances they have been upholding the thrones of political tyranny. In no instance have they been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty have found in the clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate liberty, does not need the clergy."
― James Madison (1751 to 1836)
"When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."
― Benjamin Franklin (1706 to 1790), 2000 Years of Disbelief by James A. Haught
"(When) the (Virginia) bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason & right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that it's protections of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantel of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohametan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination."
― Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826), from his autobiography, 1821, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson Memorial Edition, edited by Lipscomb and Bergh, 1:67
"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind. "
― Thomas Paine (1737 to 1809)
"Whilst you are proclaiming peace and good will to men, emancipating all nations, you insist upon retaining an absolute power over wives. But you must remember that arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken ― and notwithstanding all your wise laws and maxims we have it in our power not only to free ourselves but to subdue our masters, and without violence throw both your natural and legal authority at our feet."
― Abigail Adams (1744 to 1818), letter to John Adams