Famous quotes containing the words pure and/or imaginary:
“A State, in idea, is the opposite of a Church. A State regards classes, and not individuals; and it estimates classes, not by internal merit, but external accidents, as property, birth, etc. But a church does the reverse of this, and disregards all external accidents, and looks at men as individual persons, allowing no gradations of ranks, but such as greater or less wisdom, learning, and holiness ought to confer. A Church is, therefore, in idea, the only pure democracy.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“Its imaginary value will increase with the years, and if he [his grandson-in-law] lives to my age, or another half century, he may see it carried in the procession of our nation’s birthday, as the relics of the saints are in those of the church.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)