Liberty of any kind is never lost all at once.
Men often act knowingly against their interest.
The richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds.
No amount of observations of white swans can allow the inference that all swans are white, but the observation of a single black swan is sufficient to refute that conclusion.
Truth springs from argument amongst friends.
Moving from an objective statement of fact to a subjective statement of value does not work, because it leaves open questions that have not been answered.
To have recourse to the veracity of the supreme Being, in order to prove the veracity of our senses, is surely making a very unexpected circuit.
The most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation.
What we call a mind is nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions, united together by certain relations and supposed, though falsely, to be endowed with a perfect simplicity and identity.
The rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason.
That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise.
A little philosophy makes a man an Atheist: a great deal converts him to religion.
It is with books as with women, where a certain plainness of manner and of dress is more engaging than that glare of paint and airs and apparel which may dazzle the eye, but reaches not the affections.
Human happiness seems to consist in three ingredients: action, pleasure and indolence.
It is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause; for this may be done by one great or wise action in an age. But to escape censure a man must pass his whole life without saying or doing one ill or foolish thing.
The Crusades – the most signal and most durable monument of human folly that has yet appeared in any age or nation.
The consequence of a very free commerce between the sexes, and of their living much together, will often terminate in intrigues and gallantry.
Apart from the representational content of an idea there is another component: its force and vivacity, its impetus.
Kitsch is: a species of beauty, which, as it is florid and superficial, pleases at first; but soon palls upon the taste, and is rejected with disdain, at least rated at much lower value.
There is nothing, in itself, valuable or despicable, desirable or hateful, beautiful or deformed; but that these attributes arise from the particular constitution and fabric of human sentiment and affection.