The free conversation of a friend is what I would prefer to any environment.

The law always limits every power it gives.

Virtue, like wholesome food, is better than poisons, however corrected.

Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.

Every disastrous accident alarms us, and sets us on enquiries concerning the principles whence it arose: Apprehensions spring up with regard to futurity: And the mind, sunk into diffidence, terror, and melancholy, has recourse to every method of appeasing those secret intelligent powers, on whom our fortune is supposed entirely to depend.

It seems certain, that though a man, in a flush of humour, after intense reflection on the many contradictions and imperfections of human reason, may entirely renounce all belief and opinion, it is impossible for him to persevere in this total scepticism, or make it appear in his conduct for a few hours.

[priests are] the pretenders to power and dominion, and to a superior sanctity of character, distinct from virtue and good morals.