“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.”

Men’s views of things are the result of their understanding alone. Their conduct is regulated by their understanding, their temper, and their passions.

There is nothing to be learnt from a Professor, which is not to be met with in Books.

It is, therefore, a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave.

It is, therefore, a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave.

Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.

But the life of a man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.

To be a philosophical Sceptic is the first and most essential step towards being a sound, believing Christian.

The truth springs from arguments amongst friends.

When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.

Any pride or haughtiness, is displeasing to us, merely because it shocks our own pride, and leads us by sympathy into comparison, which causes the disagreeable passion of humility.

How can we satisfy ourselves without going on in infinitum? And, after all, what satisfaction is there in that infinite progression?

What a peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call ‘thought’

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

Tis not unreasonable for me to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.

The bigotry of theologians is a malady which seems almost incurable.

I weigh the one miracle against the other and according to the superiority which I discover, I pronounce my decision.

I love ‘Harry Potter’ and JK Rowling – don’t laugh at me!

You can’t really just make someone into something and it works all the time; that person has to be a natural.

Fiction writing is great. You can make up almost anything.

Anything you dream is fiction, and anything you accomplish is science, the whole history of mankind is nothing but science fiction.

The aim of science is to discover and illuminate truth. And that, I take it, is the aim of literature, whether biography or history or fiction. It seems to me, then, that there can be no separate literature of science.

I can’t read fiction without visualizing every scene. The result is it becomes a series of pictures rather than a book.

In the documentary the basic material has been created by God, whereas in the fiction film the director is a God; he must create life.

All fiction is autobiographical fantasy.