philosophy Quotes

A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.

To be a philosophical sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential to being a sound, believing Christian.

There is a very remarkable inclination in human nature to bestow on external objects the same emotions which it observes in itself, and to find every where those ideas which are most present to it.

Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principals.

I have written on all sorts of subjects... yet I have no enemies; except indeed all the Whigs, all the Tories, and all the Christians.

Nothing endears so much a friend as sorrow for his death. The pleasure of his company has not so powerful an influence.

The rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason.

It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.

Custom is the great guide to human life.

It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom.