Thomas Jefferson
- letter to Roger C. Weightman, June 24, 1826
All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride legitimately, by the grace of God.
Benjamin Franklin
- Letter to Joseph Priestley (8 Feb. 1780)
The rapid progress true science now makes occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon. It is impossible to imagine the height to which may be carried, in a thousand years, the power of man over matter... O that moral science were in as far a way of improvement, that men would cease to be wolves to one another, and that human beings would at length learn what they now improperly call humanity!
