Brutes abstract not. -- If it may be doubted, whether beasts compound and enlarge their ideas, that way, to any degree; this, I think, I may be positive in, that the power of abstracting is not at all in them; and that the having of general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes, and is an excellency which the faculties of brutes do by no means attain to.

When we know our own strength, we shall the better know what to undertake with hopes of success.

Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself.

Action is the great business of mankind, and the whole matter about which all laws are conversant.

To ask at what time a man has first any ideas is to ask when he begins to perceive; having ideas and perception being the same thing.

Children generally hate to be idle; all the care then is that their busy humour should be constantly employed in something of use to them

Words, in their primary or immediate signification, stand for nothing but the ideas in the mind of him who uses them.