Fear of power invisible, feigned by the mind or imagined from tales publicly allowed, is religion; not allowed, superstition.
The first and fundamental law of Nature, which is, to seek peace and follow it.
Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money.
If I read as many books as most men do, I would be as dull-witted as they are.
When all the world is overcharged with inhabitants, then the last remedy of all is war, which provideth for every man, by victory or death.
Obligation is thraldom, and thraldom is hateful.
The privilege of absurdity; to which no living creature is subject, but man only.
Words are the counters of wise men, and the money of fools.
Science is the knowledge of consequences, and dependence of one fact upon another.
Fear of things invisible is the natural seed of that which everyone in himself calleth religion.
Leisure is the Mother of Philosophy.
The world is governed by opinion.
All men, among themselves, are by nature equal. The inequality we now discern hath its spring from the civil law.
There are very few so foolish that they had not rather govern themselves than be governed by others.
Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves.
The source of every crime, is some defect of the understanding; or some error in reasoning; or some sudden force of the passions. Defect in the understanding is ignorance; in reasoning, erroneous opinion.
The first cause of Absurd conclusions I ascribe to the want of Method.
Subjects have no greater liberty in a popular than in a monarchial state. That which deceives them is the equal participation of command.
Prudence is a presumption of the future, contracted from the experience of time past.
Felicity is a continual progress of the desire from one object to another, the attaining of the former being still but the way to the latter.