John Toland Quotes
John Toland was an Irish-born freethinker, political pamphleteer, and one of the most controversial English-language philosophers of the early Enlightenment. Educated at Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leiden, and Oxford, he wrote in support of religious tolerance, a free press, and the constitutional achievements of the Glorious Revolution. The quotes below are attributed to John Toland, organized by topic.
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John Toland on Freedom
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Attributed to John Toland:
“A free press is the surest defence of a free people.”
John Toland on God
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Attributed to John Toland:
“Whatever is contrary to reason can be no part of true religion.”
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Attributed to John Toland:
“Pantheism is the worship of the universe as the only divine.”
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Attributed to John Toland:
“Mystery has too often been used to disguise the absence of meaning.”
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“Such is the deplorable condition of our age, that a man dares not openly and directly own what he thinks of divine matters, though it be never so true and beneficial, if it but very slightly differs from what is received by any party, or that is established by law.”
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“That the sacred name of religion which sounds nothing but sanctity, peace and integrity should be so universally abused to patronize ambition, impiety and contention! And that what is our highest interest perfectly to understand, should (for reasons afterward to be laid open) both be maintained to be obscure, and very industriously made so!”
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“Nay, it has come to this, that Truth meets no where with stronger opposition, than from many of those that raise the loudest cry about it, and would be taken for no less than the only dispensers of the favors and oracles of Heaven. If any has the firmness to touch the minutest thing that brings them Gain or Credit, he's presently pursued with the hue and cry of Heresy.”
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“I hope to make it appear, that the use of reason in religion is not so dangerous as commonly represented.”
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“I hold nothing as an article of my Religion, but what the highest evidence forced me to embrace.”
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“Not only a few men, but oftentimes whole societies, whilst they consider things but very superficially, set such a value upon certain sounds, as if they were the real essence of all religion. ... And yet, as I hinted now, they either signify nothing, or have been invented by some leading men to make plain things obscure.”
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“Since Religion is calculated for reasonable Creatures, 'tis Conviction and not Authority that should bear Weight with them.”
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John Toland on Justice
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“If we make a just computation, and take in the primitive martyrs with the Prophets and Apostles themselves, the professed defenders of Truth, only for Truth's sake, will be found to be a small handful with respect to the numerous partisans of error.”
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John Toland on Knowledge
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“They are not the articles of the East or West , Orthodox or Arian , Protestant or Papist , considered as such, that I trouble myself about, but those of Jesus Christ and his Apostles.”
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John Toland on Nature
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Attributed to John Toland:
“All matter is essentially active.”
John Toland on Truth
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“The best method, I think, of communicating to others the Truth, is that by which a Man has learnt it himself.”
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