. . . to know the order of nature, and regard the universe as orderly is the highest function of the mind.

He who wishes to revenge injuries by reciprocal hatred will live in misery. But he who endeavors to drive away hatred by means of love, fights with pleasure and confidence; he resists equally one or many men, and scarcely needs at all the help of fortune. Those whom he conquers yield joyfully

He that can carp in the most eloquent or acute manner at the weakness of the human mind is held by his fellows as almost divine.

All the objects pursued by the multitude not only bring no remedy that tends to preserve our being, but even act as hinderances, causing the death not seldom of those who possess them, and always of those who are possessed by them.

To understand something is to be delivered of it.

He who has a true idea, knows at that same time that he has a true idea, nor can he doubt concerning the truth of the thing.

If we conceive that anyone loves, desires, or hates anything which we ourselves love, desire, or hate, we shall thereupon regard the thing in question with more steadfast love, etc. On the contrary, if we think that anyone shrinks from something that we love, we shall undergo vacillation of the soul.