Fear has been the original parent of superstition, every new calamity urges trembling mortals to deprecate the wrath of invisible enemies
Many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.
Our work is the presentation of our capabilities.
A state of scepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But the practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude, that if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss...
I understand by this passion the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a single female, which prefers her to the rest of her sex, and which seeks her possession as the supr...
The most sublime efforts of philosophy can extend no farther than feebly to point out the desire, the hope, or, at most, the probability, of a future state, there is nothing, except a divine revelatio...
Unchecked power corrupts.
The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.
Books are those faithful mirrors that reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes.
During the long period which elapsed between the Egyptian and the Babylonian servitudes, the hopes as well as fears of the Jews appear to have been confined within the narrow compass of the present li...
Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.
On solemn festivals, Julian, who felt and professed an unfashionable dislike to these frivolous amusements, condescended to appear in the Circus; and, after bestowing a careless glance on five or six...
Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition.
Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule.
لقد حكمت البلاد لمدة أربعين عاما ... مرهوبا من أعدائي ... محبوبا من أصدقائي ... محترما من خصومي ... لم يعوزني شيء من النعيم الأرضي ... و لكن لقد قمت باحصاء عدد الأيام التي كنت سعيدا فيها سعادة حقيقية...
It is always easy, as well as agreeable, for the the inferior ranks of mankind to claim a merit from the contempt of that pomp and pleasure, which fortune has placed beyond their reach. The virtue of...
In their censures of luxury, the fathers are extremely minute and circumstantial;89 and among the various articles which excite their pious indignation, we may enumerate false hair, garments of any co...
I must reluctantly observe that two causes, the abbreviation of time, and the failure of hope, will always tinge with a browner shade the evening of life.
According to the maxims of universal toleration, the Romans protected a superstition which they despised.
Every man who rises above the common level has received two educations: the first from his teachers the second, more personal and important, from himself.