“Such are the heights of wickedness to which men are driven by religion.”

The dreadful fear of hell is to be driven out, which disturbs the life of man and renders it miserable, overcasting all things with the blackness of darkness, and leaving no pure, unalloyed pleasure.

Gently touching with the charm of poetry.

Tis pleasant to stand on shore and watch others labouring in a stormy sea.

Were a man to order his life by the rules of true reason, a frugal substance joined to a contented mind is for him great riches; for never is there any lack of a little.

These the senses we trust, first, last, and always.

It’s easier to avoid the snares of love than to escape once you are in that net.

Violence and wrong enclose all who commit them in their meshes and do mostly recoil on him from whom they begin.

From the heart of the fountain of delight rises a jet of bitterness that tortures us among the very flowers.

It is doubtful what fortune to-morrow will bring.

Never trust the calm sea when she shows her false alluring smile.

The mind like a sick body can be healed and changed by medicine.

Meantime, when once we know from nothing still Nothing can be create, we shall divine More clearly what we seek: those elements From which alone all things created are, And how accomplished by no tool of Gods.

Continual dropping wears away a stone.

If the matter of death is reduced to sleep and rest, what can there be so bitter in it, that any one should pine in eternal grief for the decease of a friend?

What is food to one man may be fierce poison to others.

Men are eager to tread underfoot what they have once too much feared.