The past and present are only our means; the future is always our end. Thus we never really live, but only hope to live.

The great mass of people judge well of things, for they are in natural ignorance, which is man's true state.

Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.

The end point of rationality is to demonstrate the limits of rationality.

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

Parents fear the destruction of natural affection in their children. What is this natural principle so liable to decay? Habit is a second nature, which destroys the first. Why is not custom nature? I suspect that this nature itself is but a first custom, as custom is a second nature.

The gist is that good and evil are foreordained. What is foreordained comes necessarily to be after a prior act of divine volition...Rather, everything small and large is written and comes to be in a known and expected measure.