Hatred which is completely vanquished by love passes into love: and love is thereupon greater than if hatred had not preceded it.

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.

If slavery, barbarism and desolation are to be called peace, men can have no worse misfortune.

Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.

Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.

A good thing which prevents us from enjoying a greater good is in truth an evil.

In the state of nature, wrong-doing is impossible; or, if anyone does wrong, it is to himself, not to another. For no one by the law of nature is bound to please another, unless he chooses, nor to hold anything to be good or evil, but what he himself, according to his own temperament, pronounces to be so; and, to speak generally, nothing is forbidden by the law of nature, except what is beyond everyone's power.