Thomas Paine: “If better reasons can be shown for them than against them, they will stand; if the contrary, they will not.”

Reason and discussion, persuasion and conviction, become the weapons in the contest, and it is only when those are attempted to be suppressed that recourse is had to violence.

I do not believe that any two men, on what are called doctrinal points, think alike who think at all.

It is only those who have not thought that appear to agree.

Why may we not suppose, that the great Father of all is pleased with variety of devotion; and that the greatest offence we can act, is that by which we seek to torment and render each other miserable?