The heart of man is made to reconcile the most glaring contradictions.

But it is a miracle that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country.

Such is the nature of novelty that where anything pleases it becomes doubly agreeable if new; but if it displeases, it is doubly displeasing on that very account.

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

From causes which appear similar, we expect similar effects. This is the sum total of all our experimental conclusions.

All this creative power of the mind amounts to no more than the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing the materials afforded us the by senses and experience.

This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, universal, and directly destructive of society.