I have tried sedulously not to laugh at the acts of man, nor to lament them, nor to detest them, but to understand them.
Schisms do not originate in a love of truth, which is a source of courtesy and gentleness, but rather in an inordinate desire for supremacy.
Blessed are the weak who think that they are good because they have no claws.
God is a thing that thinks.
Statesman are suspected of plotting against mankind, rather than consulting their interests, and are esteemed more crafty than learned.
Care of the poor is incumbent on society as a whole.
If anyone conceives that he is loved by another, and believes that he has given no cause for such love, he will love that other in return.
Everything in nature is a cause from which there flows some effect.
I call him free who is led solely by reason.
Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak.
Only free men are thoroughly grateful one to another.
He whose honor depends on the opinion of the mob must day by day strive with the greatest anxiety, act and scheme in order to retain his reputation. For the mob is varied and inconsistent, and therefore if a reputation is not carefully preserved it dies quickly.
It is usually the case with most men that their nature is so constituted that they pity those who fare badly and envy those who fare well.
To comprehend an idea, a person must simultaneously accept it as true. Conscious analysis - which, depending on the idea, may occur almost immediately or with considerable effort - allows the mind to reject what it intially accepted as fact.
Love is pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause, and hatred pain accompanied by the idea of an external cause.
Men are especially intolerant of serving and being ruled by, their equals.
All laws which can be broken without any injury to another, are counted but a laughing-stock, and are so far from bridling the desires and lusts of men, that on the contrary they stimulate them.
Things could not have been brought into being by God in any manner or in any order different from that which has in fact obtained.
There is no fear without some hope, and no hope without some fear.
Sin cannot be conceived in a natural state, but only in a civil state, where it is decreed by common consent what is good or bad.
In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth.
Except God no substance can be granted or conceived. .. Everything, I say, is in God, and all things which are made, are made by the laws of the infinite nature of God, and necessarily follows from the necessity of his essence.
Anyone who seeks for the true causes of miracles, and strives to understand natural phenomena as an intelligent being, and not to gaze at them like a fool, is set down and denounced as an impious heretic.
The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things.
A free man, who lives among ignorant people, tries as much as he can to refuse their benefits. .. He who lives under the guidance of reason endeavours as much as possible to repay his fellow's hatred, rage, contempt, etc. with love and nobleness.
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