If love and ambition should be in equal balance, and come to jostle with equal force, I make no doubt but that the last would win the prize.

Of all human and ancient opinions concerning religion, that seems to me the most likely and most excusable, that acknowledged God as an incomprehensible power, the original and preserver of all things, all goodness, all perfection, receiving and taking in good part the honour and reverence that man paid him, under what method, name, or ceremonies soever.

There is no desire more natural than the desire of knowledge. (Il n'est desir plus naturel que le desir de connaissance)

Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice; for indeed it seems we have no other test of truth and reason than the example and pattern of the opinions and customs of the country we live in

Now, since everything else is furnished with the exact amount of needle and thread required to maintain its being, it is in truth incredible that we alone should be brought into the world in a defective and indigent state, in a state such that we cannot maintain ourselves without external aid.

Perhaps it is not without reason that we attribute facility in belief and conviction to simplicity and ignorance; for it seems to me I once learned that belief was sort of an impression made on our mind, and that the softer it is the less resistant t.

Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.