I posted these during the related discussions in late January, and I think 
they remain apropos now.  I don't think anybody need fear exposure to ideas 
with which they disagree, if we believe the truth will assert itself in the 
end.

"That differences of opinion should arise among men on politics, on religion 
and on every other topic of human inquiry, and that these should be freely 
expressed in a country where all our faculties are free, is to be expected. 
But these valuable privileges are much perverted when permitted to disturb 
the harmony of social intercourse, and to lessen the tolerance of 
opinion." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Citizens of Washington, 1809.

"I am myself an empiric in natural philosophy, suffering my faith to go no 
further than my facts. I am pleased, however, to see the efforts of 
hypothetical speculation, because by the collisions of different hypotheses, 
truth may be elicited and science advanced in the end." --Thomas Jefferson 
to George P. Hopkins, 1822.

"In every country where man is free to think and to speak, differences of 
opinion will arise from difference of perception, and the imperfection of 
reason; but these differences when permitted, as in this happy country, to 
purify themselves by free discussion, are but as passing clouds 
overspreading our land transiently and leaving our horizon more bright and 
serene." --Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waring, 1801.

--Eric

Eric D. M. Johnson
Proprietor
The Village Factsmith Historical Research & Consulting
http://www.factsmith.com/
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