A heresy can spring only from a system that is in full vigor.
A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believe things only because his pastor says so, or the assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy.
For my name and memory I leave to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages.
I shall never be a heretic; I may err in dispute, but I do not wish to decide anything finally; on the other hand, I am not bound by the opinions of men.
If the individual, or heretic, gets hold of some essential truth, or sees some error in the system being practiced, he commits so many marginal errors himself that he is worn out before he can establish his point.
It may be you fear more to deliver judgment upon me than I fear judgment.
The conscience of the world is so guilty that it always assumes that people who investigate heresies must be heretics; just as if a doctor who studies leprosy must be a leper. Indeed, it is only recently that science has been allowed to study anything without reproach.
The difference between heresy and prophecy is often one of sequence. Heresy often turns out to have been prophecy — when properly aged.