“I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.”

“To prejudge other men's notions before we have looked into them is not to show their darkness but to put out our own eyes.”

“For where is the man that has incontestable evidence of the truth of all that he holds, or of the falsehood of all he condemns; or can say that he has examined to the bottom all his own, or other men's opinions? The necessity of believing without knowledge, nay often upon very slight grounds, in this fleeting state of action and blindness we are in, should make us more busy and careful to inform ourselves than constrain others.”

“There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men.”

“There’s always a random element to taking lives.”

“New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not common.”

“For it will be very difficult to persuade men of sense that he who with dry eyes and satisfaction of mind can deliver his brother to the executioner to be burnt alive, does sincerely and heartily concern himself to save that brother from the flames of hell in the world to come.”