The straight line cannot proceed through the torturous twists of life.

People first feel things without noticing them, then notice them with inner distress and disturbance, and finally reflect on them with a clear mind.

Uniform ideas originating among entire peoples unknown to each other must have a common ground of truth.

Men first feel necessity, then look for utility, next attend to comfort, still later amuse themselves with pleasure, thence grow dissolute in luxury, and finally go mad and waste their substance.

Common sense is judgment without reflection, shared by an entire class, an entire nation, or the entire human race.

The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.

Metaphysics abstracts the mind from the senses, and the poetic faculty must submerge the whole mind in the senses. Metaphysics soars up to universals, and the poetic faculty must plunge deep into particulars.