Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.

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

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I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace.

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Ye that dare oppose, not only tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth!

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When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to [profess] things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.

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Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.

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The slavery of fear had made men afraid to think.

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To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.

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There are two distinct classes of men - those who pay taxes and those who receive and live upon taxes.

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The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.

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