Simply from the fact that we have regarded a thing with the emotion of pleasure or pain, though that thing be not the efficient cause of the emotion, we can either love or hate it.

Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.

If slavery, barbarism and desolation are to be called peace, men can have no worse misfortune.

self-preservation is the primary and only foundation of virtue.

The more a government strives to curtail freedom of speech, the more obstinately is it resisted; not indeed by the avaricious, ... but by those whom good education, sound morality, and virtue have rendered more free.

If anyone conceives that he is loved by another, and believes that he has given no cause for such love, he will love that other in return.

Nature has no goal in view, and final causes are only human imaginings.