Wonder is the first of all the passions.

The senses deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to trust wholly those who have deceived us even once.

I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake.

If we possessed a thorough knowledge of all the parts of the seed of any animal (e.g. man), we could from that alone, be reasons entirely mathematical and certain, deduce the whole conformation and figure of each of its members, and, conversely if we knew several peculiarities of this conformation, we would from those deduce the nature of its seed.

Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.

The mind effortlessly and automatically takes in new ideas, which remain in limbo until verified or rejected by conscious, rational analysis.

A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.