“A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature.”

I never knew anyone, that examined and deliberated about nonsense, who did not believe it before the end of his enquiries.

Where am I, or what? From what causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return?

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.

It is difficult for a man to speak long of himself without vanity.

Nothing is more usual than for philosophers to encroach upon the province of grammarians; and to engage in disputes of words, while they imagine that they are handling controversies of the deepest importance and concern

The gazing populace receive greedily, without examination, whatever soothes superstition and promotes wonder.

In public affairs men are often better pleased that the truth, though known to everybody, should be wrapped up under a decent cover than if it were exposed in open daylight to the eyes of all the world.

Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.

Reading and sauntering and lounging and dosing, which I call thinking, is my supreme Happiness.

Revolutions of government cannot be effected by the mere force of argument and reasoning.

No man ever threw away life while it was worth keeping.

The identity that we ascribe to things is only a fictitious one, established by the mind, not a peculiar nature belonging to what we’re talking about.

Heaven and Hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and bad.

The victory is not gained by the men at arms, who manage the pike and the sword; but by the trumpeters, drummers, and musicians of the army.

Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them

All sentiment is right; because sentiment has a reference to nothing beyond itself, and is always real, wherever a man is conscious of it.

Laws ought to be fashioned unto the manners and conditions of the people whom they are meant to benefit, and not imposed upon them according to the simple rule of right.

Progress is The law of life: man is not Man as yet.

How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.

In the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celebrate the nonbelongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks.

I trust in nature for the stable laws of beauty and utility. Spring shall plant and autumn garner to the end of time.

Two things form the bedrock of any open society – freedom of expression and rule of law. If you don’t have those things, you don’t have a free country.

We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones.

Nature’s law, That man was made to mourn. Man’s inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn! O Death, the poor man’s dearest friend, The kindest and the best!