Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not common.
The only defense against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.
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.
Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him.
Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves poison the fountain.
Revolt is the right of the people
Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.
No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience.
How long have you been holding those words in your head, hoping to use them?
There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men.
Success in fighting means not coming at your opponent the way he wants to fight you.
To prejudge other men's notions before we have looked into them is not to show their darkness but to put out our own eyes.
Our Business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct.
All wealth is the product of labor.
What worries you, masters you.
Reverie is when ideas float in our mind without reflection or regard of the understanding.
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.
Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
In transgressing the law of nature, the offender declares himself to live by another rule than that of reason and common equity" Ch.2, 8
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and let it out completely, along with my soul.
Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses.
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.
Few men think, yet all will have opinions. Hence men’s opinions are superficial and confused.
The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.
[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.
It is ambition enough to be employed as an under-labourer in clearing the ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish which lies in the way to knowledge.
There are a thousand ways to Wealth, but only one way to Heaven.
Business of man is to be happy,
Methinks Sir Robert should have carried his Monarchical Power one step higher and satisfied the World, that Princes might eat their Subjects too.
Beasts abstract not.
Truths are not the better nor the worse for their obviousness or difficulty, but their value is to be measured by their usefulness and tendency.
Now, I appeal to the consciences of those who persecute, wound, torture, and kill other men on the excuse of ‘religion’, whether they do this in a spirit of friendship and kindness.
