A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker.

Custom is the great guide to human life.

Men are much oftener thrown on their knees by the melancholy than by the agreeable passions.

Mankind are so much the same, in all times and places, that history informs us of nothing new or strange in this particular. Its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature.

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.

No advantages in this world are pure and unmixed.

The supposition that the future resembles the past, is not founded on arguments of any kind, but is derived entirely from habit.