Nature is satisfied with little; and if she is, I am also.

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.

In proportion as we endeavor to live according to the guidance of reason, shall we strive as much as possible to depend less on hope, to liberate ourselves from fear, to rule fortune, and to direct our actions by the sure counsels of reason.

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.

The safest way for a state is to lay down the rule that religion is comprised solely in the exercise of charity and justice, and that the rights of rulers in sacred, no less than in secular matters, should merely have to do with actions, but that every man should think what he likes and say what he thinks.

...The body is affected by the image of the thing, in the same way as if the thing were actually present.

The more we understand individual things, the more we understand God.