The rules of navigation never navigated a ship. The rules of architecture never built a house.

It is a question of fact, whether the influence of motives be fixed by laws of nature, so that they shall always have the same effect in the same circumstances.

There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words.

In every chain of reasoning, the evidence of the last conclusion can be no greater than that of the weakest link of the chain, whatever may be the strength of the rest.

Every conjecture we can form with regard to the works of God has as little probability as the conjectures of a child with regard to the works of an adult.

must acknowledge, that to act properly is much more valuable than to think justly or reason acutely.

[I]f a man bred to the seafaring life, and accustomed to think and talk only of matters relating to navigation, enters into discourse upon any other subject; it is well known, that the language and the notions proper to his own profession are infused into every subject, and all things are measured by the rules of navigation: and if he should take it into his head to philosophize concerning the faculties of the mind, it cannot be doubted, but he would draw his notions from the fabric of the ship, and would find in the mind, sails, masts, rudder, and compass.