This perceiving, active being is what I call mind, spirit, soul, or myself. By which words I do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely ….

To be a good patriot, a man must consider his countrymen as God's creatures, and himself as accountable for his acting towards them..

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..

The same principles which at first view lead to skepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common sense..

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 t….

The world is like a board with holes in it, and the square men have got into the round holes, and the round into the square..

Of all men living [priests] are our greatest enemies. If it were possible, they would extinguish the very light of nature, turn the world into a dung….

Where the people are well educated, the art of piloting a state is best learned from the writings of Plato..

Our youth we can have but to-day, We may always find time to grow old..

I had rather be an oyster than a man, the most stupid and senseless of animals..

A mind at liberty to reflect on its own observations, if it produce nothing useful to the world, seldom fails of entertainment to itself..

It is impossible that a man who is false to his friends and neighbours should be true to the public..

A ray of imagination or of wisdom may enlighten the universe, and glow into remotest centuries..

What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind..

Few men think, yet all will have opinions..

All the choir of heaven and furniture of earth - in a word, all those bodies which compose the frame of the world - have not any subsistence without ….

We have first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see..

Truth is the cry of all, but the game of few..

To be is to be perceived.

God is a being of transcendent and unlimited perfections: his nature therefore is incomprehensible to finite spirits..

To be is to be perceived (Esse est percipi)." Or, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?.