Letter to Miles King (26 September 1814)
1810s
Context: Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to our god alone. I enquire after no man's and trouble none with mine; nor is it given to us in this life to know whether yours or mine, our friend's or our foe's, are exactly the right.
Lectures on Philosophy of Religion, Volume 1 (1827)
Tout ce que nous connaissons de grand nous vient des nerveux. Ce sont eux et non pas d'autres qui ont fondé les religions et composé les chefs-d'œuvre.
http://books.google.com/books?id=qrZEAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Tout+ce+que+nous+connaissons+de+grand+nous+vient+des+nerveux.+Ce+sont+eux+et+non+pas+d'autres+qui+ont+fond%C3%A9+les+religions%22+%22et+compos%C3%A9+les+chefs-d'%C5%93uvre%22&pg=PA272#v=onepage
Volume I
In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol III: The Guermantes Way (1920)
Pages 236-237.
The Revolution Will Be Digitised: Dispatches From the Information War, 1st Edition
Context: Why, then, are the world's governments intent on controlling and regulating the Internet? Free speech is most threatening to authoritarian systems such as autocracies, militaries, the police and security services. Security services in principle exist for our protection but that is so only when they are accountable to the public for their considerable power. We are seeing a push by these agencies to move beyond the rule of law, to be accountable to no one but themselves. National security is becoming the new word of God to which all must submit in blind obedience. The decisions made, the liberties eroded, the crimes committed in the name of national security cannot be challenged because the information on which they are based remains secret.
Aphorism 73
Novum Organum (1620), Book I
“Princes are not bound to give an account of their Actions but to God alone.”
Declaration on the dissolution of Parliament (10 March 1628)
For no one desires anything in all that one seems to desire other than the Good, which You are. Also in all intellectual deliberation no one searches for something other than the true, which You are. What does the living search for other than life? What does the existing search for other than existence? You, therefore, who bestow life and existence, are that one, who seems to be sought differently in the diverse rites and is named with diverse names, since You as You are remain unknown and ineffable for all.
De Pace Fidei (The Peace of Faith) (1453)
“Lord of myself, accountable to none,
But to my conscience, and my God alone.”
Satire addressed to a Friend, line 36; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922).
As quoted in "Stray Questions for: David Eagleman" by Blake Wilson in The New York Times (10 July 2009) http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/stray-questions-for-david-eagleman/
Context: Our ignorance of the cosmos is too vast to commit to atheism, and yet we know too much to commit to a particular religion. A third position, agnosticism, is often an uninteresting stance in which a person simply questions whether his traditional religious story (say, a man with a beard on a cloud) is true or not true. But with Possibilianism I’m hoping to define a new position — one that emphasizes the exploration of new, unconsidered possibilities. Possibilianism is comfortable holding multiple ideas in mind; it is not interested in committing to any particular story.
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 257.
