For there is but one essential justice which cements society, and one law which establishes this justice. This law is right reason, which is the true rule of all commandments and prohibitions. Whoever neglects this law, whether written or unwritten, is necessarily unjust and wicked.

As a philosopher, I have a right to ask for a rational explanation of religious faith.

For he, indeed, who looks into the face of a friend beholds, as it were, a copy of himself.

All the arts, which have a tendency to raise man in the scale of being, have a certain common band of union, and are connected, if I may be allowed to say so, by blood-relationship with one another.

There has never been a poet or orator who thought another better than himself.

Nature has lent us life at interest, like money, and has fixed no day for its payment.

There is in superstition a senseless fear of God; religion consists in the pious worship of Him.