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.

Did men but consider that the sun, moon, and stars, and every other object of the senses, are only so many sensations in their minds, which have no other existence but barely being perceived, doubtless they would never fall down and worship their own ideas; but rather address their homage to that eternal invisible Mind which produces and sustains all things.

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.

A mind at liberty to reflect on its own observations, if it produce nothing useful to the world, seldom fails of entertainment to itself.

God is a being of transcendent and unlimited perfections: his nature therefore is incomprehensible to finite spirits.

I had rather be an oyster than a man, the most stupid and senseless of animals.

Certainly he who can digest a second or third fluxion need not, methinks, be squeamish about any point in divinity.