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

A wise man apportions his beliefs to the evidence.

If subjects must never resist, it follows that every prince, without any effort, policy, or violence, is at once rendered absolute and uncontrollable.

All knowledge degenerates into probability.

no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish.

The Crusades – the most signal and most durable monument of human folly that has yet appeared in any age or nation.

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.

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.

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?

I wasn’t a ladies’ man.

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.

Time perfects men as well as destroys them.

Barack Obama makes me feel good to be a black man.

The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals.

History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man.

What can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is out of debt, and has a clear conscience?

In the light of reincarnation life changes its aspect, for it becomes the school of the eternal Man within us, who seeks therein his development, the Man that was and is and shall be, for whom the hour will never strike.