“Men's views of things are the result of their understanding alone. Their conduct is regulated by their understanding, their temper, and their passions.”

“When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken, giving views to passion without that proper deliberation which alone can secure them from the grossest absurdities.”

“Celibacy,fasting, penance, mortification, self-denial, humility, silence, solitude and the whole train of monkish virtues...Stupify the understanding and harden the heart, obscure the fancy and sour the temper...A gloomy hair-brained enthusiast, after his death, may have a place in the calendar, but will scarcely ever be admitted, when alive, into intimacy and society, except by those who are as delerious and dismal as himself.”

“He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper, but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to his circumstance.”

“All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep ignoranceand obscurity, is to be sceptical, or at least cautious, and notto admit of any hypothesis whatever, much less of any which issupported by no appearance of probability.”

“[T]he Old Testament, [...] if considered as a general rule of conduct, would lead to consequences destructive of all principles of humanity and morality.”

“It is an absurdity to believe that the Deity has human passions, and one of the lowest of human passions, a restless appetite for applause”