"I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere."

"The most effectual means of preventing the perversion of power into tyranny, are to diffuse it generally among the people, and to give to all, in proportion to their interest in it, a proportionate sh…"

"The only security against error is the freedom of inquiry."

"I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us."

"The commerce of slaves in the West Indies, I am informed, is an open market of human flesh, where the unhappy victims are daily exposed to the highest bidder, and where the most sacred ties of nature …"