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

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

What everyone wants from life is continuous and genuine happiness.

Many errors, of a truth, consist merely in the application of the wrong names of things. For if a man says that the lines which are drawn from the centre of the circle to the circumference are not equal, he understands by the circle, at all events for the time, something else than mathematicians understand by it.

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

Of all the things that are beyond my power, I value nothing more highly than to be allowed the honor of entering into bonds of friendship with people who sincerely love truth. For, of things beyond our power, I believe there is nothing in the world which we can love with tranquility except such men.

Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.