Every wise, just, and mild government, by rendering the condition of its subjects easy and secure, will always abound most in people, as well as in commodities and riches.
Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.
The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one.
A propensity to hope and joy is real riches one to fear and sorrow real poverty.
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.
He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper but he is more excellent who suits his temper to any circumstances.
Accuracy is, in every case, advantageous to beauty, and just reasoning to delicate sentiment. In vain would we exalt the one by depreciating the other.
This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society.
A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any...
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.
He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to any circumstances.
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.
A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.
The law always limits every power it gives.
There is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselve...
Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian, were not nature too strong for it.
Be a philosopher but amid all your philosophy be still a man.
The most perfect happiness, surely, must arise from the contemplation of the most perfect object.
It is an absurdity to believe that the Deity has human passions, and one of the lowest of human passions, a restless appetite for applause
If Shakespeare be considered as a MAN born in a rude age and educated in the lowest manner, without any instruction either from the world or from books, he may be regarded as a prodigy; if represented...