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

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.

He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper, but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to his circumstance.

The feelings of our heart, the agitation of our passions, the vehemence of our affections, dissipate all its conclusions, and reduce the profound philosopher to a mere plebeian.

We should never know how to adjust means to ends, or to employ our natural powers in the production of any effect. There would be an end at once of all action, as well as of the chief part of speculation.

We make allowance for a certain degree of selfishness in men; because we know it to be inseparable from human nature, and inherent in our frame and constitution. By this reflexion we correct those sentiments of blame, which so naturally arise upon any opposition.

Epicurus’s old questions are still unanswered: Is he (God) willing to prevent evil, but not able? then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? then whence evil?

A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker.

As every inquiry which regards religion is of the utmost importance, there are two questions in particular which challenge our attention, to wit, that concerning its foundation in reason, and that concerning it origin in human nature.

Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.

A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature.

I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.

When suicide is out of fashion we conclude that none but madmen destroy themselves.

It is possible for the same thing both to be and not to be.

The fact that different cultures have different practices no more refutes [moral] objectivism than the fact that water flows in different directions in different places refutes the law of gravity.

I finally decided to give music my all. If it didn’t work out and I had to move home, fine. I had to give it 100% first.

there’s no straight line between effort and reward.

No one, I realized, was going to look out for me unless I pushed for it.

If we could execute with a monumental effort just to reach an immediate goal that everyone could see, we could then continue to the next visually.

I’m telling you a lie in a vicious effort that you will repeat my lie over and over until it becomes true

Effort is the unconstrained willingness to persevere through difficulty.

To relinquish the futile effort to control change is one of the strengthening forces of true detachment & thus true love.

Because we are separated everything separates us, even our efforts to join each other.