 Any person seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity. |
| Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them. |
| I have written on all sorts of subjects... yet I have no enemies; except indeed all the Whigs, all the Tories, and all the Christians. |
| Eloquence, at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection, but addresses itself entirely to the desires and affections, captivating the willing hearers, and subduing their understanding. |
| A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence. |
| No advantages in this world are pure and unmixed. |
| Nothing endears so much a friend as sorrow for his death. The pleasure of his company has not so powerful an influence. |
| The advantages found in history seem to be of three kinds, as it amuses the fancy, as it improves the understanding, and as it strengthens virtue. |
| Heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad. But the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue. |
| To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see; all this is nothing but to perceive. |
| Be a philosopher but, amid all your philosophy be still a man. |
| A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow real poverty. |
| It is a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave. |
| Men often act knowingly against their interest. |
| It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom. |
| And what is the greatest number? Number one. |
| There is a very remarkable inclination in human nature to bestow on external objects the same emotions which it observes in itself, and to find every where those ideas which are most present to it. |
| It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger. |
| Truth springs from argument amongst friends. |
| Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few. |
