Nothing can be meaner than the anxiety to live on, to live on anyhow and in any shape.

Habit is stronger than reason.

The superiority of the distant over the present is only due to the mass and variety of the pleasures that can be suggested, compared with the poverty of those that can at any time be felt.

The primary use of conversation is to satisfy the impulse to talk.

It is pathetic to observe how lowly the motives are that religion, even the highest, attributes to the deity... To be given the best morsel, to be remembered, to be praised, to be obeyed blindly and punctiliously - these have been thought points of honor with the gods.

The Bible is a wonderful source of inspiration for those who don't understand it.

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.