Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.

Uncommon expressions are a disfigurement rather than an embellishment of discourse.

If we confine ourselves to a general and distant reflection on the ills of human life, that can have no effect to prepare us for them. If by close and intense meditation we render them present and intimate to us, that is the true secret for poisoning all our pleasures, and rendering us perpetually miserable.

To have recourse to the veracity of the supreme Being, in order to prove the veracity of our senses, is surely making a very unexpected circuit.

Your corn is ripe today, mine will be so tomorrow. 'Tis profitable for us both that I should labor with you today, and that you should aid me tomorrow. I have no kindness for you, and know you have as little for me. I will not, therefore, take any pains upon your account . . . Here then I leave you to labor alone; you treat me in the same manner. The seasons change, and both of us lose our harvests for want of mutual confidence and security.

The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one.