Sadness diminishes a man's powers
Those who know the true use of money, and regulate the measure of wealth according to their needs, live contented with few things.
In the mind there is no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined to wish this or that by a cause, which has also been determined by another cause, and this last by another cause, and so on to infinity.
Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare.
Further conceive, I beg, that a stone, while continuing in motion, should be capable of thinking and knowing, that it is endeavoring, as far as it can, to continue to move. Such a stone, being conscious merely of its own endeavor and not at all indifferent, would believe itself to be completely free, and would think that it continued in motion solely because of its own wish. This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined.
Big fish eat small fish with as much right as they have power.
To understand something is to be delivered of it.
We feel and know that we are eternal.
The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.
I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.
He who loves God cannot endeavor that God should love him in return.
Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.
I can control my passions and emotions if I can understand their nature
Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men's natural abilities as to restrain them.
the ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain by fear, nor to exact obedience, but to free every man from fear that he may live in all possible security... In fact the true aim of government is liberty.
A good thing which prevents us from enjoying a greater good is in truth an evil.
A free man thinks of nothing less than of death; and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life.
Freedom is absolutely necessary for the progress in science and the liberal arts.
No to laugh, not to lament, not to detest, but to understand.
Pride is pleasure arising from a man's thinking too highly of himself.
Everyone endeavors as much as possible to make others love what he loves, and to hate what he hates... This effort to make everyone approve what we love or hate is in truth ambition, and so we see that each person by nature desires that other persons should live according to his way of thinking.
Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.
Pride is over-estimation of oneself by reason of self-love.
The greatest secret of monarchic rule...is to keep men deceived and to cloak in the specious name of religion the fear by which they must be checked, so that they will fight for slavery as they would for salvation, and will think it not shameful, but a most honorable achievement, to give their life and blood that one man may have a ground for boasting.
All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.
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