In All Ages Of The World, Priests

In All Matters Of Opinion And Science ... The Difference Between Men Is ... Oftener Found To Lie In Generals Than In Particulars; And To Be Less In Reality Than In Appearance. An Explication Of The Terms Commonly Ends The Controversy, And The Disputants Are Surprised To Find That They Had Been Quarrelling, While At Bottom They Agreed In Their Judgement.

History Is The Discovering Of The Principles Of Human Nature.

If Nature Has Been Frugal In Her Gifts And Endowments, There Is The More Need Of Art To Supply Her Defects. If She Has Been Generous And Liberal, Know That She Still Expects Industry And Application On Our Part, And Revenges Herself In Proportion To Our Negligent Ingratitude. The Richest Genius, Like The Most Fertile Soil, When Uncultivated, Shoots Up Into The Rankest Weeds; And Instead Of Vines And Olives For The Pleasure And Use Of Man, Produces, To Its Slothful Owner, The Most Abundant Crop Of Poisons.

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

The Greatest Crimes Have Been Found, In Many Instances, To Be Compatible With A Superstitious Piety And Devotion; Hence It Is Justly Regarded As Unsafe To Draw Any Inference In Favor Of A Man's Morals, From The Fervor Or Strictness Of His Religious Exercises, Even Though He Himself Believe Them Sincere.