God: personified incomprehensibility.

A clever child brought up with a foolish one can itself become foolish. Man is so perfectible and corruptible he can become a fool through good sense.

There is something in our minds like sunshine and the weather, which is not under our control. When I write, the best things come to me from I know not where.

Those who never have time do least

We now possess four principles of morality: 1) a philosophical: do good for its own sake, out of respect for the law; 2) a religious: do good because it is God's will, out of love of God; 3) a human: do good because it will promote your happiness, out of self-love; 4) a political: do good because it will promote the welfare of the society of which you are a part, out of love of society having regard to yourself. But is this not all one single principle, only viewed from different sides?

The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.

The most successful tempters and thus the most dangerous are the deluded deluders.