The most tyrannical of governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts.

When a man is prey to his emotions, he is not his own master.

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 world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.

It is not possible that we should remember that we existed before our body, for our can bear no trace of such existence, neither can eternity be defined in terms of time or have any relation to time. But notwithstanding, we feel and know that we are eternal.

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.

Desire nothing for yourself, which you do not desire for others.