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

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.

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.

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.

Oh, how blessed young men are who have to struggle for a foundation and beginning in life.

Nothing but an imperious intellectual and moral necessity can drive into doubt a religious mind, for it is as though an earthquake shook the foundations of the soul, and the very being quivers and sways under the shock.

The revolution cannot be funded. It’s not the imagination of trusts and foundations that’s going to bring real change.

I tell you, deep inside you is a fountain of bliss, a fountain of joy. Deep inside your center core is truth, light, love, there is no guilt there, there is no fear there. Psychologists have never looked deep enough.

The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable.

A house must be built on solid foundations if it is to last. The same principle applies to man, otherwise he too will sink back into the soft ground and becomes swallowed up by the world of illusion.

Greatness is always built on this foundation: the ability to appear, speak and act, as the most common man.

The great extension of our experience in recent years has brought light to the insufficiency of our simple mechanical conceptions and, as a consequence, has shaken the foundation on which the customary interpretation of observation was based.