All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.

Reason connot defeat emotion, an emotion can only be displaced or overcome by a stronger emotion.

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

The virtue of a free man appears equally great in refusing to face difficulties as in overcoming them.

Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.

As men's habits of mind differ, so that some more readily embrace one form of faith, some another, for what moves one to pray may move another to scoff, I conclude ... that everyone should be free to choose for himself the foundations of his creed, and that faith should be judged only by its fruits.

To give aid to every poor man is far beyond the reach and power of every man. Care of the poor is incumbent on society as a whole.