God Is An Ever-present Spirit Guiding All

It Is On Opinion Only That Government Is Founded; And This Maxim Extends To The Most Despotic And Most Military Governments, As Well As To The Most Free And Most Popular.

We Learn The Influence Of Our Will From Experience Alone. And Experience Only Teaches Us, How One Event Constantly Follows Another; Without Instructing Us In The Secret Connexion, Which Binds Them Together, And Renders Them Inseparable.

It Is Not Contrary To Reason To Prefer The Destruction Of The Whole World To The Scratching Of My Finger.

It Is Still Open For Me, As Well As You, To Regulate My Behavior, By My Experience Of Past Events.

A Man Who Has Cured Himself Of All Ridiculous Prepossessions, And Is Fully, Sincerely, And Steadily Convinced, From Experience As Well As Philosophy, That The Difference Of Fortune Makes Less Difference In Happiness Than Is Vulgarly Imagined; Such A One Does Not Measure Out Degrees Of Esteem According To The Rent-rolls Of His Acquaintance. ... His Internal Sentiments Are More Regulated By The Personal Characters Of Men, Than By The Accidental And Capricious Favors Of Fortune.