The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naïve.
There is an imaginary circle drawn around every human being, over which no government should be able to step.
However unwillingly a person who has a strong opinion may admit the possibility that his opinion may be false, he ought to be moved by the consideration that, however true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth.
The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people.
The principles which men profess on any controverted subject are usually a very incomplete exponent of the opinions they really hold.
All errors which a man is likely to commit against advice are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him for his good.
There is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides.
There are not unfrequently substantial reasons underneath for customs that appear to us absurd; and if I were ever again to find myself amongst strangers, I should be solicitous to examine before I condemned.
Time heals almost everything. But when you are healed, you are too old to enjoy
He [William Harvey] bid me to goe to the Fountain-head, and read Aristotle, Cicero, Avicenna, and did call the Neoteriques shitt-breeches.
Figure out how to do things that have never been done before.