The Most Lively Thought Is Still Inferior

No Truth Appears To Me More Evident Than That Beasts Are Endowed With Thought And Reason As Well As Men.

A Hundred Cabinet-makers In London Can Work A Table Or A Chair Equally Well; But No One Poet Can Write Verses With Such Spirit And Elegance As Mr. Pope.

..when, In My Philosophical Disquisitions, I Deny A Providence And A Future State, I Undermine Not The Foundations Of Society, But Advance Principles, Which They Themselves, Upon Their Own Topics, If They Argue Consistently, Must Allow To Be Solid And Satisfactory.

Such Is The Nature Of Novelty That Where Anything Pleases It Becomes Doubly Agreeable If New; But If It Displeases, It Is Doubly Displeasing On That Very Account.

We Can Conceive A Thinking Being To Have Either Many Or Few Perceptions. Suppose The Mind To Be Reduced Even Below The Life Of Anoyster. Suppose It To Have Only One Perception, As Of Thirst Or Hunger. Consider It In That Situation. Do You Conceive Any Thing But Merely That Perception? Have You Any Notion Of Self Or Substance? If Not, The Addition Of Other Perceptions Can Never Give You That Notion.