Eloquence, When In Its Highest

Nothing Is More Favorable To The Rise Of Politeness And Learning, Than A Number Of Neighboring And Independent States, Connected Together By Commerce And Policy.

Riches Are Valuable At All Times, And To All Men, Because They Always Purchase Pleasures Such As Men Are Accustomed To And Desire; Nor Can Anything Restrain Or Regulate The Love Of Money But A Sense Of Honor And Virtue, Which, If It Be Not Nearly Equal At All Times, Will Naturally Abound Most In Ages Of Knowledge And Refinement.

... The Idea Of God, As Meaning An Infinitely Intelligent, Wise And Good Being, Arises From Reflecting On The Operations Of Our Own Mind, And Augmenting, Without Limit, Those Qualities Of Goodness And Wisdom.

There Is, Indeed A More Mitigated Scepticism Or Academical Philosophy, Which May Be Both Durable And Useful, And Which May, In Part, Be The Result Of This Pyrrhonism, Or Excessive Scepticism, When Its Undistinguished Doubts Are Corrected By Common Sense And Reflection.

If We Confine Ourselves To A General And Distant Reflection On The Ills Of Human Life, That Can Have No Effect To Prepare Us For Them. If By Close And Intense Meditation We Render Them Present And Intimate To Us, That Is The True Secret For Poisoning All Our Pleasures, And Rendering Us Perpetually Miserable.