Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.

Kind words produce their own image in men's souls; and a beautiful image it is. They soothe and quiet and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, morose, unkind feelings. We have not yet begun to use kind words in such abundance as they ought to be used.

We have so exalted a notion of the human soul that we cannot bear to be despised, or even not to be esteemed by it. Man, in fact, places all his happiness in this esteem.

If I believe in God and life after death and you do not, and if there is no God, we both lose when we die. However, if there is a God, you still lose and I gain everything.

No one is ignorant that there are two avenues by which opinions are received into the soul, which are its two principal powers: the understanding and the will.

To call a king "Prince" is pleasing, because it diminishes his rank.

By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by thought I comprehend the world.