Nothing can be more real, or concern us more, than our own sentiments of pleasure and uneasiness; and if these be favourable to virtue and unfavourable to vice, no more can be requisite to the regulation of our conduct and behavior.

History is the discovering of the principles of human nature.

It is a certain rule that wit and passion are entirely incompatible. When the affections are moved, there is no place for the imagination.

And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.

Every movement of the theater by a skilful poet is communicated, as it were, by magic, to the spectators; who weep, tremble, resent, rejoice, and are inflamed with all the variety of passions which actuate the several personages of the drama.

The first ideas of religion arose, not from contemplation of the works of nature, but from a concern with regard to the events of life.

It is on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular.