The world would be astonished if it knew how great a proportion of its brightest ornaments, of those distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue, are complete sceptics in religion.

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

A man of clear ideas errs grievously if he imagines that whatever is seen confusedly does not exist; it belongs to him, when he meets with such a thing, to dispel the midst, and fix the outlines of the vague form which is looming through it.

He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.

Laws and systems of polity always begin by recognizing the relations they find already existing between individuals.

I will call no being good who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow creatures; and if such a creature can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go .

The idea is essentially repulsive, of a society held together only by the relations and feelings arising out of pecuniary interest.