Poverty is an anomaly to rich people; it is very difficult to make out why
people who want dinner do not ring the bell.
-- Walter Bagehot
+~
+ In reality, nothing can save us from a state of chaos or confusion unless
+we have acknowledged it and actually experienced it. Otherwise, even though
+we may be in the midst of chaos, we don’t even notice it, although we are
+subject to it. On the path of meditation, the first real glimpse of our
+confusion and the general chaos is when we begin to feel uncomfortable. We
+feel that something is a nuisance. Something is bugging us constantly.
+ What is that? Eventually we discover that we are the nuisance. We begin
+to see ourselves being a nuisance to ourselves when we uncover all kinds of
+thought problems, emotional hang-ups, and physical problems in meditation.
+Before we work with anyone else, we have to deal with being a nuisance to
+ourselves. We have to pull ourselves together. We might get angry with
+ourselves, saying, "I could do better than this. What’s wrong with me? I
+seem to be getting worse. I’m going backward." We might get angry with
+the whole world, including ourselves. Everything, the entire universe,
+becomes the expression of total insult. We have to relate to that experience
+rather than rejecting it. If you hope to be helpful to others, first you have
+to work with yourself.
+ -- Chögyam Trungpa, from "Mindfulness in Action", published by Shambhala
+ Publications
+~
+If I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered
+as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded,
+that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers
+against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious
+persecution.
+ -- George Washington, letter to the United Baptist Chamber of Virginia (1789)
+~
+Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one,
+he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
+ -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr (1787)
+~
+In regard to religion, mutual toleration in the different professions thereof
+is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practiced, and both by
+precept and example inculcated on mankind.
+ -- Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists (1771)
+~
+Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the
+strongly marked feature of all religions established by law. Take away the
+law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes its original benignity.
+ -- Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man (1791)
+~
+Congress has no power to make any religious establishments.
+ -- Roger Sherman, Congress (1789)
+~
+The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.
+ -- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1758)
+~
+I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people
+build a wall of separation between Church & State.
+ -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to the Danbury Baptists (1802)
+~
+To argue with a man who has renounced the use of reason is like administering
+medicine to the dead.
+ -- Thomas Paine, The American Crisis No. V (1776)
+~
+Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than
+our opinions in physics or geometry.
+ -- Thomas Jefferson, A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (1779)
+~
+Christian establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which
+facilitate the execution of mischievous projects.
+ -- James Madison, letter to William Bradford, Jr. (1774)
+~
+There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of
+science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of
+public happiness.
+ -- George Washington, address to Congress (1790)
+~
+During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity
+been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride
+and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both,
+superstition, bigotry and persecution.
+ -- James Madison, General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia (1785)