Without enthusiasm, the adventurer could never kindle that fire in his followers which is so necessary to consolidate their mutual interests; for no one can heartily deceive numbers who is not first of all deceived himself.

Orthodoxy is my doxy - heterodoxy is another man's doxy.

Of all literary exercitations, whether designed for the use or entertainment of the world, there are none of so much importance, or so immediately our concern, as those which let us into the knowledge of our own nature. Others may exercise the understanding or amuse the imagination; but these only can improve the heart and form the human mind to wisdom.

Enthusiasm is that temper of the mind in which the imagination has got the better of the judgment.

The skilful disputant well knows that he never has his enemy at more advantage than when, by allowing the premises, he shows him arguing wrong from his own principles.

Reason is the test of ridicule, not ridicule the test of truth.

The Egyptians, by the concurrent testimony of antiquity, were among the first who taught that the soul was immortal.