Where the people are well educated, the art of piloting a state is best learned from the writings of Plato.

The love of truth, virtue, and the happiness of mankind are specious pretexts, but not the inward principles that set divines at work; else why should they affect to abuse human reason, to disparage natural religion, to traduce the philosophers as they universally do?

The fawning courtier and the surly squire often mean the same thing,--each his own interest.

A ray of imagination or of wisdom may enlighten the universe, and glow into remotest centuries.

The world is like a board with holes in it, and the square men have got into the round holes, and the round into the square.

Of all men living [priests] are our greatest enemies. If it were possible, they would extinguish the very light of nature, turn the world into a dungeon, and keep mankind for ever in chains and darkness.

Doth the Reality of sensible things consist in being perceived? or, is it something distinct from their being perceived, and that bears no relation to the mind?