Courage, Of All National Qualities, Is The

Beauty In Things Exists In The Mind Which Contemplates Them.

Nothing Is More Dangerous To Reason Than The Flights Of The Imagination And Nothing Has Been The Occasion Of More Mistakes Among Philosophers.

When Anyone Tells Me That He Saw A Dead Man Restored To Life, I Immediately Consider With Myself Whether It Be More Probable That This Person Should Either Deceive Or Be Deceived Or That The Fact Which He Relates Should Really Have Happened. I Weigh The One Miracle Against The Other And According To The Superiority Which I Discover, I Pronounce My Decision. Always I Reject The Greater Miracle. If The Falsehood Of His Testimony Would Be More Miraculous Than The Event Which He Relates, Then And Not Till Then, Can He Pretend To Command My Belief Or Opinion.

The Chief Benefit, Which Results From Philosophy, Arises In An Indirect Manner, And Proceeds More From Its Secret, Insensible Influence, Than From Its Immediate Application.

Reasoning From The Common Course Of Nature, And Without Supposing Any New Interposition Of The Supreme Cause, Which Ought Always To Be Excluded From Philosophy; What Is Incorruptible Must Also Be Ingenerable. The Soul, Therefore, If Immortal, Existed Before Our Birth: And If The Former Existence Noways Concerned Us, Neither Will The Latter.