“Nothing is necessitated whose opposite is possible.”

Men act like brutes in so far as the sequences of their perceptions arise through the principle of memory only, like those empirical physicians who have mere practice without theory.

A distinction must be made between true and false ideas, and that too much rein must not be given to a man’s imagination under pretext of its being a clear and distinct intellection.

Natural religion itself, seems to decay very much. Many will have human souls to be material: others make God himself a corporeal being.

It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labor of calculation which could be relegated to anyone else if machines were used.

The present is great with the future.

I also readily admit that there are animals, taken in the ordinary sense, that are incomparably larger than those we know of, and I have sometimes said in jest that there might be a system like ours which is the pocketwatch of some enormous giant.

It’s easier to be original and foolish than original and wise.

If you have a clear idea of a soul, you will have a clear idea of a form; for it is of the same genus, though a different species.

There are also two kinds of truths: truth of reasoning and truths of fact.

..This is why the ultimate reason of things must lie in a necessary substance, in which the differentiation of the changes only exists eminently as in their source; and this is what we call God.

Take what you need, do what you should, you will get what you want.

To love is to find pleasure in the happiness of others.

The art of discovering the causes of phenomena, or true hypotheses, is like the art of deciphering, in which an ingenious conjecture often greatly shortens the road.

There never is absolute birth nor complete death, in the strict sense, consisting in the separation of the soul from the body. What we call births are developments and growths, while what we call deaths are envelopments and diminutions.

The past is pregnant with the present.

Everything that is possible demands to exist.

The science of numbers ought to be preferred as an acquisition before all others, because of its necessity and because of the great secrets and other mysteries which there are in the properties of numbers. All sciences partake of it, and it has need of none.

The excuse for the destruction of liberty is always the plea of necessary ‘ that there is no alternative.

Necessity is the last and strongest weapon.

Men aren’t necessities, they’re luxuries.

In a society dominated by the fact of commercial competition, money is necessarily the test of prowess, and wastefulness the sole criterion of power.

One person can change your life forever. By showing you genuine, unnecessary, kindness.

One of the necessary accompaniments of capitalism in a democracy is political corruption.

It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility.