No to laugh, not to lament, not to detest, but to understand.

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

Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men.

Men who are ruled by reason desire nothing for themselves which they would not wish for all mankind.

Superstition, then, is engendered, preserved, and fostered by fear.

It is not possible that we should remember that we existed before our body, for our can bear no trace of such existence, neither can eternity be defined in terms of time or have any relation to time. But notwithstanding, we feel and know that we are eternal.

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.