“It is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives.”

“The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds.”

“Nothing is so mischievous as the apotheosis of error.”

“The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.”

“The images of men's wit and knowledge remain in books, exempted from the worry of time and capable of perpetual renovation.”

“Let every student of nature take this as a rule,-- that whatever his mind seizes and dwells upon with peculiar satisfaction is to be held in suspicion.”

“Philosophy when superficially studied, excites doubt, when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.”