In completing one discovery we never fail to get an imperfect knowledge of others of which we could have no idea before, so that we cannot solve one doubt without creating several new ones.

Every man, when he comes to be sensible of his natural rights, and to feel his own importance, will consider himself as fully equal to any other person whatever

I have procured air [oxygen] ... between five and six times as good as the best common air that I have ever met with.

Will is nothing more than a particular case of the general doctrine of association of ideas, and therefore a perfectly mechanical thing.

It is no use speaking in soft, gentle tones if everyone else is shouting.

What I have known with respect to myself, has tended much to lessen both my admiration, and my contempt, of others.

How glorious, then, is the prospect, the reverse of all the past, which is now opening upon us, and upon the world. Government, we may now expect to see, not only in theory and in books but in actual practice, calculated for the general good, and taking no more upon it than the general good requires, leaving all men the enjoyment of as many of their natural rights as possible, and no more interfering with matters of religion, with men's notions concerning God, and a future state, than with philosophy, or medicine.