Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men's natural abilities as to restrain them.

Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men.

He who loves God cannot endeavor that God should love him in return.

True knowledge of good and evil as we possess is merely abstract or general, and the judgment which we pass on the order of things and the connection of causes, with a view to determining what is good or bad for us in the present, is rather imaginary than real.

The multitude always strains after rarities and exceptions, and thinks little of the gifts of nature; so that, when prophecy is talked of, ordinary knowledge is not supposed to be included. Nevertheless it has as much right as any other to be called Divine.

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

Those who know the true use of money, and regulate the measure of wealth according to their needs, live contented with few things.