Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
of the world and drudgery of business , seeks a pretense of reason to give itself a full and uncontrolled indulgence.
Nothing endears so much a friend as sorrow for his death. The pleasure of his company has not so powerful an influence.
From causes which appear similar, we expect similar effects. This is the sum total of all our experimental conclusions.
In a vain man, the smallest spark may kindle into the greatest flame, because the materials are always prepared for it.
Avarice, or the desire of gain, is a universal passion which operates at all times, at all places, and upon all persons.
I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another.
Delicacy of taste has the same effect as delicacy of passion; it enlarges the sphere both of our happiness and our misery.
To be a philosophical sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential to being a sound, believing Christian.
No human testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle, and make it a just foundation for any such system of religion
I cannot but bless the memory of Julius Caesar, for the great esteem he expressed for fat men and his aversion to lean ones.
Habit may lead us to belief and expectation but not to the knowledge, and still less to the understanding, of lawful relations.
If ... the past may be no Rule for the future, all Experience becomes useless and can give rise to no Inferences or Conclusions.
The supposition that the future resembles the past, is not founded on arguments of any kind, but is derived entirely from habit.
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's when we start working together that the real healing takes place... it's when we start spilling our sweat, and not our blood.
[priests are] the pretenders to power and dominion, and to a superior sanctity of character, distinct from virtue and good morals.
It is certain that the easy and obvious philosophy will always, with the generality of mankind, have preference above the accurate.
Any person seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity.
I have written on all sorts of subjects... yet I have no enemies; except indeed all the Whigs, all the Tories, and all the Christians.
Praise never gives us much pleasure unless it concur with our own opinion, and extol us for those qualities in which we chiefly excel.
The first ideas of religion arose, not from contemplation of the works of nature, but from a concern with regard to the events of life.
It is a certain rule that wit and passion are entirely incompatible. When the affections are moved, there is no place for the imagination.
Mohammed praises [instances of] tretchery, inhumanity, cruelty, revenge, and bigotry that are utterly incompatible with civilized society.
Heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad. But the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue.
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
Grief and disappointment give rise to anger, anger to envy, envy to malice, and malice to grief again, till the whole circle be completed.
The great subverter of Pyrrhonism or the excessive principles of scepticism is action, and employment, and the occupations of common life.
Disbelief in futurity loosens in a great measure the ties of morality, and may be for that reason pernicious to the peace of civil society.
Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.
The consequence of a very free commerce between the sexes, and of their living much together, will often terminate in intrigues and gallantry.
Nothing is more dangerous to reason than the flights of the imagination and nothing has been the occasion of more mistakes among philosophers.
To have recourse to the veracity of the supreme Being, in order to prove the veracity of our senses, is surely making a very unexpected circuit.
What would become of history, had we not a dependence on the veracity of the historian, according to the experience, what we have had of mankind?
The advantages found in history seem to be of three kinds, as it amuses the fancy, as it improves the understanding, and as it strengthens virtue.
When any opinion leads us into absurdities, 'tis certainly false; but 'tis not certain an opinion is false, because 'tis of dangerous consequence.
Liberty of thinking, and of expressing our thoughts, is always fatal to priestly power, and to those pious frauds on which it is commonly founded.
The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one.
Belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain.
.. that a rule, which, in speculation, may seem the most advantageous to society, may yet be found, in practice, totally pernicious and destructive.
Jealousy is a painful passion; yet without some share of it, the agreeable affection of love has difficulty to subsist in its full force and violence.
That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise.
The identity that we ascribe to things is only a fictitious one, established by the mind, not a peculiar nature belonging to what we’re talking about.
Accuracy is, in every case, advantageous to beauty, and just reasoning to delicate sentiment. In vain would we exalt the one by depreciating the other.
No conclusions can be more agreeable to scepticism than such as make discoveries concerning the weakness and narrow limits of human reason and capacity.
A hundred cabinet-makers in London can work a table or a chair equally well; but no one poet can write verses with such spirit and elegance as Mr. Pope.
Examine the religious principles which have, in fact, prevailed in the world. You will scarcely be persuaded that they are other than sick men's dreams.
Do you come to a philosopher as to a cunning man, to learn something by magic or witchcraft, beyond what can be known by common prudence and discretion?
Curiosity, or the love of knowledge, has a very limited influence, and requires youth, leisure education, genius and example to make it govern any person
Your corn is ripe today; mine will be so tomorrow. 'Tis profitable for us both, that I should labour with you today, and that you should aid me tomorrow.
Moving from an objective statement of fact to a subjective statement of value does not work, because it leaves open questions that have not been answered.