Nothing is more dangerous to reason than the flights of the imagination and nothing has been the occasion of more mistakes among philosophers.

Enthusiasm, being the infirmity of bold and ambitious tempers, is naturally accompanied with a spirit of liberty; as superstition,on the contrary, renders men tame and abject, and fits them for slavery.

No one can doubt, that the convention for the distinction of property, and for the stability of possession, is of all circumstances the most necessary to the establishment of human society, and that after the agreement for the fixing and observing of this rule, there remains little or nothing to be done towards settling a perfect harmony and concord.

Examine the religious principles which have, in fact, prevailed in the world. You will scarcely be persuaded that they are other than sick men's dreams.

Beauty, whether moral or natural, is felt, more properly than perceived.

I have written on all sorts of subjects... yet I have no enemies; except indeed all the Whigs, all the Tories, and all the Christians.

Few enjoyments are given from the open and liberal hand of nature; but by art, labor and industry we can extract them in great abundance. Hence, the ideas of property become necessary in all civil society.