Occupation: Philosopher Birth: May 7, 1711 Death: August 25, 1776
History is the discovering of the principles of human nature..
Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few..
All knowledge degenerates into probability..
When we reflect on the shortness and uncertainty of life, how despicable seem all our pursuits of happiness..
Human happiness seems to consist in three ingredients: action, pleasure and indolence..
The difference between a man who is led by opinion or emotion and one who is led by reason. The former, whether he will or not, performs things of wh….
There is no such thing as freedom of choice unless there is freedom to refuse..
The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster..
If God is omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good, whence evil? If God wills to prevent evil but cannot, then He is not omnipotent. If He can prevent ….
It is seldom, that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. Slavery has so frightful an aspect to men accustomed to freedom, that it must steal upon ….
To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see; all this is nothing but to perceive..
Reading and sauntering and lounging and dosing, which I call thinking, is my supreme Happiness..
A little philosophy makes a man an Atheist: a great deal converts him to religion.
Nothing exists without a cause, the original cause of this universe we call God..
Anything that is conceivable is possible..
Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them..
Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them..
A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence..
I do not have enough faith to believe there is no god..
When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken..
I never asserted such an absurd thing as that things arise without a cause..