He who lives in the single exercise of his mental faculties, however usefully or curiously directed, is equally an imperfect animal with the man who knows only the exercise of muscles.
From Frances Wright
Speak of change, and the world is in alarm. And yet where do we not see change?
The simplest principles become difficult of practice, when habits, formed in error, have been fixed by time, and the simplest truths hard to receive when prejudice has warped the mind.
Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it.
These will vary in every human being; but knowledge is the same for every mind, and every mind may and ought to be trained to receive it.
Do we exert our own liberties without injury to others - we exert them justly; do we exert them at the expense of others - unjustly. And, in thus doing, we step from the sure platform of liberty upon the uncertain threshold of tyranny.
The sciences have ever been the surest guides to virtue.
All that I say is, examine, inquire. Look into the nature of things. Search out the grounds of your opinions, the for and against. Know why you believe, understand what you believe, and possess a reason for the faith that is in you.
A necessary consequent of religious belief is the attaching ideas of merit to that belief, and of demerit to its absence.
And when did mere preaching do any good? Put something in the place of these things. Fill the vacuum of the mind.
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