It is certainly much easier wholly to decline a passion than to keep it within just bounds and measures; and that which few can moderate almost anybody may prevent.

Pleasure and pain, though directly opposite, are yet so contrived by nature as to be constant companions; and it is a fact that the same motions and muscles of the face are employed both in laughing and crying.

The true science and study of mankind is man.

Those who have nothing else to recommend them to the respect of others but only their blood, cry it up at a great rate, and have their mouth perpetually full of it. They swell and vapor, and you are sure to hear of their families and relations every third word.

Pleasure and pain, though directly opposite are contrived to be constant companions.

He who receives a benefit should never forget it; he who bestows should never remember it.

All religions are pieced together out of elements which seem so at odds with reason that any intelligence laughs at them.