Our Business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct.

All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.

With books we stand on the shoulders of giants.

This is that which I think great readers are apt to be mistaken in; those who have read of everything, are thought to understand everything too; but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind , and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections:;; unless we chew them over again, they will not give us strength and nourishment.

Virtue is everywhere that which is thought praiseworthy; and nothing else but that which has the allowance of public esteem is called virtue.

The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it, into which a young gentleman should be enter'd by degrees, as he can bear it; and the earlier the better, so he be in safe and skillful hands to guide him.