Nothing in the universe is contingent, but all things are conditioned to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of the divine nature.

I make this chief distinction between religion and superstition, that the latter is founded on ignorance, the former on knowledge.

It may easily come to pass that a vain man may become proud and imagine himself pleasing to all when he is in reality a universal nuisance.

.... we are a part of nature as a whole, whose order we follow.

The multitude always strains after rarities and exceptions, and thinks little of the gifts of nature; so that, when prophecy is talked of, ordinary knowledge is not supposed to be included. Nevertheless it has as much right as any other to be called Divine.

The greater emotion with which we conceive a loved object to be affected toward us, the greater will be our complacency.

Self-complacency is pleasure accompanied by the idea of oneself as cause.