All power, even the most despotic, rests ultimately on opinion.

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.

A little philosophy makes a man an Atheist: a great deal converts him to religion

Mankind are always found prodigal both of blood and treasure in the maintenance of public justice.

The whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspence of judgment appear the only result of ourmost accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject. But such is the frailty of human reason, and such the irresistible contagion of opinion, that even this deliberate doubt could scarcely be upheld; did we not enlarge our view, and opposing one species of superstition to another, set them a quarrelling; while we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape into the calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy.

Eloquence, when in its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection.

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.