“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.”

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.

The science of man is the only solid foundation for the other sciences.

Carelessness and in-attention alone can afford us any remedy. For this reason I rely entirely upon them.

But the greatest part of mankind float between vice and virtue.

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.

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.

If the affairs of the world were put in the hands of the screwball artists, it couldn’t be in a worse state than it is now !

It is ridiculous to suppose that the great head of things, whatever it be, pays any regard to human affairs.

Genius is mainly an affair of energy.

Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked.

It is frequently a misfortune to have very brilliant men in charge of affairs. They expect too much of ordinary men.

War isn’t declared in the name of God; it is a human affair entirely.

The ordinary literary man, even though he be an eminent historian, is ill-fitted to be a mentor in affairs of government. For… things are for the most part very simple in books, and in practical life very complex.

A man’s dying is more the survivors’ affair than his own.