11 quotes
Let every declamation turn upon the beauty of liberty and virtue, and the deformity, turpitude, and malignity, of slavery and vice.
A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
The poor people, it is true, have been much less successful than the great.
A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
Let the pulpit resound with the doctrines and sentiments of religious liberty.
A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write. Let every order and degree among the people rouse their attention and animate their resolution.
A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
A native of America who cannot read and write is as rare an appearance as a Jacobite or a Roman Catholic, that is, as rare as a comet or an earthquake.
A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.
A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country.
A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
The people ... have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers.
A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.
A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
I say RIGHTS, for such they have, undoubtedly, antecedent to all earthly government, — Rights, that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws — Rights, derived from the great Legislator of the universe.
A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
Let the bar proclaim, "the laws, the rights, the generous plan of power" delivered down from remote antiquity, inform the world of the mighty struggles and numberless sacrifices made by our ancestors in defense of freedom.
A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)