There would be too great darkness, if truth had not visible signs.

What amazes me most is to see that everyone is not amazed at his own weakness.

Who dispenses reputation? Who makes us respect and revere persons, works, laws, the great? Who but this faculty of imagination? All the riches of the earth are inadequate without its approval.

Nothing is surer than that the people will be weak.

If we submit everything to reason our religion will be left with nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we offend the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous . . . There are two equally dangerous extremes: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason.

We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others.

Custom creates the whole of equity, for the simple reason that it is accepted.