Scholastic learning and polemical divinity retarded the growth of all true knowledge.

To be a philosophical sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential to being a sound, believing Christian.

A CAUSE is an object precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with it that the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea of the other, and the impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other.

The imagination of man is naturally sublime, delighted with whatever is remote and extraordinary, and running, without control, into the most distant parts of space and time in order to avoid the objects, which custom has rendered too familiar to it.

We may well ask, What causes induce us to believe in the existence of body? but 'tis vain to ask. Whether there be body or not? That is a point which we must take for granted in all our reasonings.

The Crusades - the most signal and most durable monument of human folly that has yet appeared in any age or nation.

Fine writing, according to Mr. Addison, consists of sentiments which are natural without being obvious.