There is a much more exact correspondence between the natural and moral world than we are apt to take notice of.

The tongue may be employed about, and made to serve all the purposes of vice, in tempting and deceiving, in perjury and injustice.

Pain and sorrow and misery have a right to our assistance: compassion puts us in mind of the debt, and that we owe it to ourselves as well as to the distressed.

Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be: why then should we desire to be deceived?

Compassion is a call, a demand of nature, to relieve the unhappy as hunger is a natural call for food

But to us, probability is the very guide of life.

Happiness or satisfaction consists only in the enjoyment of those objects which are by nature suited to our several particular appetites, passions, and affections.

Every man is to be considered in two capacities, the private and public; as designed to pursue his own interest, and likewise to contribute to the good of others.

Love of our neighbour, then, has just the same respect to, is no more distant from, self-love, than hatred of our neighbour, or than love or hatred of anything else.

As this world was not intended to be a state of any great satisfaction or high enjoyment, so neither was it intended to be a mere scene of unhappiness and sorrow.

Happiness does not consist in self-love.

I believe that more people would be alive today if there were a death penalty.

The money was good while it lasted. The best part was clearly that it changed my view of what's possible, as far as thinking how you can have an impact on a national level.

My best business decision is always to have been unembarrassed about negotiating a decent deal. Not being coy or shy about money is second nature to me.

I think that we have created a new kind of person in a way. We have created a child who will be so exposed to the media that he will be lost to his parents by the time he is 12.

My life would never contain a convenient, pain-saving plan when it could stretch a problem out into an endless agony of uncertainty and torture.

I think ever since I was a kid I knew subconsciously that I wanted to be an actor. I would walk around the house pretending I was somewhere else.

I have no television - I hate it.

The true business of every company is to make and keep customers.

Generally speaking, I tend to think that whether a philosopher's views are true is a poor test of their quality. What matter are the arguments they give, and the insights those arguments inspire.

I just feel much more secure about whatever I write if I stand with one foot in reality - meaning if the stories I write about have a core of "this actually (could have) happened."