Among Well Bred People A Mutual Deference

Were A Stranger To Drop On A Sudden Into This World, I Would Show Him, As A Specimen Of Its Ills, A Hospital Full Of Diseases, A Prison Crowded With Malefactors And Debtors, A Field Of Battle Strewed With Carcasses, A Fleet Foundering In The Ocean, A Nation Languishing Under Tyranny, Famine, Or Pestilence. To Turn The Gay Side Of Life To Him, And Give Him A Notion Of Its Pleasures; Whither Should I Conduct Him? To A Ball, To An Opera, To Court? He Might Justly Think, That I Was Only Showing Him A Diversity Of Distress And Sorrow.

Disbelief In Futurity Loosens In A Great Measure The Ties Of Morality, And May Be For That Reason Pernicious To The Peace Of Civil Society.

In A Vain Man, The Smallest Spark May Kindle Into The Greatest Flame, Because The Materials Are Always Prepared For It.

Superstition Is An Enemy To Civil Liberty.

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