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

The great charm of poetry consists in lively pictures of the sublime passions, magnanimity, courage, disdain of fortune; or thoseof the tender affections, love and friendship; which warm the heart, and diffuse over it similar sentiments and emotions.

It is an absurdity to believe that the Deity has human passions, and one of the lowest of human passions, a restless appetite for applause

The most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation.

If the contemplation, even of inanimate beauty, is so delightful; if it ravishes the senses, even when the fair form is foreign tous: What must be the effects of moral beauty? And what influence must it have, when it embellishes our own mind, and is the result of our own reflection and industry?

That the corruption of the best thing produces the worst, is grown into a maxim, and is commonly proved, among other instances, by the pernicious effects of superstition and enthusiasm, the corruptions of true religion.

The more tremendous the divinity is represented, the more tame and submissive do men become his ministers: And the more unaccountable the measures of acceptance required by him, the more necessary does it become to abandon our natural reason, and yield to their ghostly guidance and direction.