The less the mind understands and the more things it perceives, the greater its power of feigning is; and the more things it understands, the more that power is diminished.

Philosophers conceive of the passions which harass us as vices into which men fall by their own fault, and, therefore, generally deride, bewail, or blame them, or execrate them, if they wish to seem unusually pious.

No one doubts but that we imagine time from the very fact that we imagine other bodies to be moved slower or faster or equally fast. We are accustomed to determine duration by the aid of some measure of motion.

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.

I saw that all things I feared, and which feared me, had nothing good or bad in them save insofar as the mind was affected by them.

He who seeks equality between unequals seeks an absurdity.