"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."
— Thomas Jefferson

"Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."
— Thomas Jefferson

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
— Thomas Jefferson, circa 1781

"To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead."
— Thomas Paine

"Have you tried to talk to her?"
"What would you like me to say Bastian? OH, I'M SORRY, INEZ. I DIDN'T MEAN TO BITE YOU, MY FANGS SLIPPED."
— Lynsay Sands (Vampires Are Forever)

"Books are better than television, the internet, or the computer for educating and maintaining freedom.
Books matter because they state ideas and then attempt to thoroughly prove them. They have an advantage precisely because they slow down the process, allowing the reader to internalize, respond, react and transform. The ideas in books matter because time is taken to establish truth, and because the reader must take the time to consider each idea and either accept it or, if he rejects it, to think through sound reasons for doing so. A nation of people who write and read is a nation with the attention span to earn an education and free society if they choose."
— Oliver DeMille

"The cause of America is in great measure the cause of all mankind."
— Thomas Paine

"The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense.
"
— Thomas A. Edison

"I am sustained by the certainty that life has meaning...as does death."
— Dean Koontz

"It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry. "
— Thomas Paine

"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it. "
— Thomas Paine

"Nothing is worse than being alone on the evening of the day when one's cow has exploded."
— Dean Koontz (Odd Thomas)

"People are going to think I'm morbid, loving all these sad books. I actually don't mind a happy ending in a novel—certainly, it's nice when it happens. But when you've invested so much time and your fingers have pushed through all that paper and you get to the end…well, a tragic ending kind of goes with the tragedy of finishing a book."
— Julia Roberts

"Only once in a generation does anything as fresh as a vomiting detective come along."
— Dean Koontz (Odd Thomas)

""I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.""
— -Thomas Jefferson 1802

"We confide in our strength, without boasting of it, we respect that of others, without fearing it."
— Thomas Jefferson

"Guilt and misery shrink, by a natural instinct, from public notice: they court privacy and solitude: and even in their choice of a grave will sometimes sequester themselves from the general population of the churchyard, as if declining to claim fellowship with the great family of man; thus, in a symbolic language universally understood, seeking (in the affecting language of Mr. Wordsworth)

’ Humbly to express
A penitential loneliness.’
"
— Thomas De Quincey

"Thou knewst the wondrous art,
And order of each part
In the whole lump, how every sense
Contributes to the health's defense
The severall Channells which convey,
The vitall current every way,
Tracks wise Nature everywhere,
In every region, every sphere,
Fathomest the mistery
Of deepe Anatomy.
The unactive carcasse thou hadst preyd upon,
And stript it to a skeleton,
But now alas! The art is gone,
And now on thee
The Crawling Worms experience their Anatomy.

eulogy of Thomas Willis (1621-1675) by Nathaniel Williams

Note: A strange immortality has been achieved by discoverers of various parts and mechanisms of the human body. Consider the Golgi apparatus or the Canals of Schlemm, for example. These names charmed me in anatomy class and I've been desultorily researching the biographies of their discoverers, which has led to an interesting title to include on my to-read list, The Soul Made Flesh "
— Nathaniel Williams

"Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something"
— Thomas A. Edison

"I am a man who knows nothing, guesses sometimes, finds frequently and who's always amazed."
— Villiers de l'Isle-Adam (L'Eve future)

"I have measured out my life with coffee spoons."
— T.S. Eliot

"He that rebels against reason is a real rebel, but he that in defence of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title to Defender of the Faith, than George the Third. "
— Thomas Paine

"Zeal without knowledge is fire without light."
— Thomas Fuller

""Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.""
— Thomas Jefferson

"Remember, women are not to be the caboose, and they are not the engine. They are much, much more than either of these."
— Patricia T. Holland (A Quiet Heart)

"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom."
— Thomas Carlyle

""Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
--Thomas Jefferson, quoting Cesare Beccaria in On Crimes and Punishment (1764)."
— Thomas Jefferson