We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.
To love truth for truth’s sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
The only defense against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.
Virtue is harder to be got than knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered.
It is therefore worthwhile, to search out the bounds between opinion and knowledge; and examine by what measures, in things, whereof we have no certain knowledge, we ought to regulate our assent, and moderate our persuasions.
One unerring mark of the love of truth is not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance than the proofs it is built upon will warrant.
When we find out an Idea, by whose Intervention we discover the Connexion of two others, this is a Revelation from God to us, by the voice of Reason.
Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.
The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.
Men being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent.
Reverie is when ideas float in our mind without reflection or regard of the understanding.
I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.
[M]an is not permitted without censure to follow his own thoughts in the search of truth, when they lead him ever so little out of the common road.
Liberty is not an Idea belonging to Volition, or preferring; but to the Person having the Power of doing, or forbearing to do, according as the Mind shall chuse or direct.
New opinions are always suspected and usually opposed without any other reason but because they are not already common.
All men are liable to error and most men are … by passion or interest under temptation to it.
A sound mind in a sound body is a short but full description of a happy state in this world.
God when he makes the prophet does not unmake the man.
It is a man’s proper business to seek happiness and avoid misery.
To give a man full knowledge of true morality I would send him to no other book than the New Testament.
New opinions are always suspected and usually opposed without any other reason but because they are not already common.
Fear is an uneasiness of the mind upon the thought of a future evil likely to befall us.
The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property.
The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property.
The thoughts that come often unsought and as it were drop into the mind are commonly the most valuable of any we have.
We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are the signs of our ideas only and not for things themselves.
As people are walking all the time, in the same spot, a path appears.
Where all is but dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use, truth and knowledge nothing.
To love our neighbor as ourselves is such a truth for regulating human society, that by that alone one might determine all the cases in social morality.
Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.
Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him.
The Bible is one of the greatest blessings bestowed by God on the children of men. It has God for its author; salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture for its matter. It is all pure.
No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience.
The improvement of understanding is for two ends: first, our own increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others.
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.
Our incomes are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and to trip.
It is one thing to show a man that he is in an error, and another to put him in possession of the truth.
It is of great use to the sailor to know the length of his line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the ocean.
We should have a great fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.
All mankind… being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.
Government has no other end, but the preservation of property.
The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property.
Things of this world are in so constant a flux, that nothing remains long in the same state.
The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom.