Self-denial Is A Monkish Virtue.

Reasoning From The Common Course Of Nature, And Without Supposing Any New Interposition Of The Supreme Cause, Which Ought Always To Be Excluded From Philosophy; What Is Incorruptible Must Also Be Ingenerable. The Soul, Therefore, If Immortal, Existed Before Our Birth: And If The Former Existence Noways Concerned Us, Neither Will The Latter.

Never Literary Attempt Was More Unfortunate Than My Treatise Of Human Nature. It Fell Dead-born From The Press.

Look Round This Universe. What An Immense Profusion Of Beings, Animated And Organized, Sensible And Active! You Admire This Prodigious Variety And Fecundity. But Inspect A Little More Narrowly These Living Existences, The Only Beings Worth Regarding. How Hostile And Destructive To Each Other! How Insufficient All Of Them For Their Own Happiness! How Contemptible Or Odious To The Spectator! The Whole Presents Nothing But The Idea Of A Blind Nature, Inpregnated By A Great Vivifying Principle, And Pouring Forth From Her Lap, Without Discernment Or Parental Care, Her Maimed And Abortive Children.

Curiosity, Or The Love Of Knowledge, Has A Very Limited Influence, And Requires Youth, Leisure Education, Genius And Example To Make It Govern Any Person

Friendship Is A Calm And Sedate Affection, Conducted By Reason And Cemented By Habit; Springing From Long Acquaintance And Mutual Obligations, Without Jealousies Or Fears, And Without Those Feverish Fits Of Heat And Cold, Which Cause Such An Agreeable Torment In The Amorous Passion.