My mind was bursting with depression and anguish. I muttered imprecations and murmuring as I passed along. I was full of loathing and abhorrence of life, and all that life carries in its train.

There must be room for the imagination to exercise its powers; we must conceive and apprehend a thousand things which we do not actually witness.

Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.

Man is the only creature we know, that, when the term of his natural life is ended, leaves the memory of himself behind him.

What indeed is life, unless so far as it is enjoyed? It does not merit the name.

As long as parents and teachers in general shall fall under the established rule, it is clear that politics and modes of government will educate and infect us all. They poison our minds, before we can resist, or so much as suspect their malignity. Like the barbarous directors of the Eastern seraglios, they deprive us of our vitality, and fit us for their despicable employment from the cradle.

The execution of any thing considerable implies in the first place previous persevering meditation.