We cannot assume the injustice of any actions which only create offense, and especially as regards religion and morals. He who utt...ers or does anything to wound the conscience and moral sense of others, may indeed act immorally; but, so long as he is not guilty of being importunate, he violates no right.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When it comes to evil, there are no gray areas. Fathers who abuse their children by battering or starving or raping them automatic...ally relinquish any entitlement to mitigation or sympathy. They commit the unpardonable moral offense of betraying their children. It matters not what their own histories were; millions of people with childhood horror stories to tell do not repeat them with their own children.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One would wonder to hear skeptical men disputing for the reason of animals, and telling us it is only our pride and prejudices tha...t will not allow them the use of that faculty. Reason shows itself in all occurrences of life; whereas the brute makes no discovery of such a talent, but in what immediately regards his own preservation, or the continuance of his species. Animals in their generation are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass. Take a brute out of his instinct, and you find him wholly deprived of understanding.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When I consider the Question, Whether there are such Persons in the World as those we call Witches? my Mind is divided between the... two opposite Opinions; or rather (to speak my Thoughts freely) I believe in general that there is, and has been such a thing as Witchcraft; but at the same time can give no Credit to any Particular Instance of it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Musick is certainly a very agreeable Entertainment, but if it would take the entire Possession of our Ears, if it would make us in...capable of hearing Sense, if it would exclude Arts that have a much greater Tendency to the Refinement of human Nature; I must confess I would allow it no better Quarter than Plato has done, who banishes it out of his Common-wealth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is no kind of false Wit which has been so recommended by the Practice of all Ages, as that which consists in a Jingle of Wor...ds, and is comprehended under the general Name of Punning. It is indeed impossible to kill a Weed, which the Soil has a natural Disposition to produce. The seeds of Punning are in the Minds of all Men, and tho' they may be subdued by Reason, Reflection, and good Sense, they will be very apt to shoot up in the greatest Genius, that is not broken and cultivated by the Rules of Art. Imitation is natural to us, and when it does not raise the Mind to Poetry, Painting, Musick, or other more noble Arts, it often breaks out in Punns and Quibbles.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »