Date: 1704

"By Arguments they could not convince me, for I was able to show greater absurdities in their Religion than they could prove in mine; and particularly, in their Doctrine of Transubstantiation; Against which I argu'd several ways: As, First from the Testimony of our Senses , viz. of seeing, feelin...

— Psalmanazar, George (1679?-1763)

Date: 1704

"Thus the belief of Transubstantiation is inconsistent with the Belief of these Miracles; for if we believe them we must allow the Testimony of Sense to be a sufficient proof of them; But if we believe Transubstantiation we must renounce our Senses , and deny them to be a certain proof of any thi...

— Psalmanazar, George (1679?-1763)

Date: 1704

"For it is liable to many of the same absurdities with the Romish Doctrine, about the Eucharist; First, because it denies the certainty of our Senses in the proper objects, and consequently destroys their great Evidence of the Christian Religion, from the Miracles wrought in confirmation of it, w...

— Psalmanazar, George (1679?-1763)

Date: 1704

"Some think that the notion of God is imprinted on the Hearts of all Men by nature; others deny that there is any such Idea of a God in the Minds of Men by nature."

— Psalmanazar, George (1679?-1763)

Date: 1704

"The Natural Power of Conscience, which reproves and torments a Man for the heinous Crimes he has committed, tho' the Person be above the fear of human Punishment, or the Crime be committed so secretly, as to escape all natural means of discovery; in which Cases Conscience by its Sentence does, a...

— Psalmanazar, George (1679?-1763)

Date: 1746

"Passions are opposed to passions and one can serve as a counterweight to another."

— Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715-1747)

Date: 1748, 1750

"l'interêt est le plus grande monarque de la Terre" [Self-interest is the strongest monarch in the world]

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1748, 1749

Wherefore a soul of clay, capable of discerning at one glance, the relations, and consequences of an infinite number of ideas, that are difficult to apprehend, would be evidently preferable to a heavy and stupid soul, formed of the most precious elements."

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1748, 1749

"The former have explored and unravelled the labyrinth of Man. They alone have discovered to us those hidden springs concealed under a cover, which hides from us so many wonders."

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1748, 1749

"Man is a machine so compound, that it is impossible to form at first a clear idea thereof, and consequently to define it. This is the reason, that all the enquiries the philosophers have made a priori, that is, by endeavouring to raise themselves on the wings of the understanding have proved ine...

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)