I had rather be an oyster than a man, the most stupid and senseless of animals.
We have first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see.
The eye by long use comes to see even in the darkest cavern: and there is no subject so obscure but we may discern some glimpse of truth by long poring on it.
That thing of hell and eternal punishment is the most absurd, as well as the most disagreeable thought that ever entered into the head of mortal man.
Others indeed may talk, and write, and fight about liberty, and make an outward pretence to it but the free-thinker alone is truly free.
Doth the Reality of sensible things consist in being perceived? or, is it something distinct from their being perceived, and that bears no relation to the mind?
The same principles which at first view lead to skepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common sense.
He who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave.
Whose fault is it if poor Ireland still continues poor?
Casting an eye on the education of children, from whence I can make a judgment of my own, I observe they are instructed in religious matters before they can reason about them, and consequently that all such instruction is nothing else but filling the tender mind of a child with prejudices.
To be a good patriot, a man must consider his countrymen as God’s creatures, and himself as accountable for his acting towards them.
The love of truth, virtue, and the happiness of mankind are specious pretexts, but not the inward principles that set divines at work; else why should they affect to abuse human reason, to disparage natural religion, to traduce the philosophers as they universally do?
There being in the make of an English mind a certain gloom and eagerness, which carries to the sad extreme; religion to fanaticism; free-thinking to atheism; liberty to rebellion.
All those who write either explicitly or by insinuation against the dignity, freedom, and immortality of the human soul, may so far forth be justly said to unhinge the principles of morality, and destroy the means of making men reasonably virtuous.
The only things we perceive are our perceptions.
In vain do we extend our view into the heavens, and pry into the entrails of the earth, in vain do we consult the writings of learned men, and trace the dark footsteps of antiquity; we need only draw the curtain of words, to behold the fairest tree of knowledge, whose fruit is excellent, and within the reach of our hand.
My inference will be that you mean nothing at all. That you employ words to no manner or purpose without any design or signification whatsoever. And I leave it to you to consider how mere jargon should be treated.
I am old and do not suffer fools gently and if you expect me to review your work, it better meet my stringent standards for logic and science.
I give up the point for the present, reserving still a right to detract my opinion in case I shall hereafter discover any false step in my progress to it.
Suppose now one of your hands hot, and the other cold, and that they are both at once put into the same vessel of water, in an intermediate state, will not the water seem cold to one hand, and warm to the other?
Esse est percipi.