Anyone who seeks for the true causes of miracles, and strives to understand natural phenomena as an intelligent being, and not to gaze at them like a fool, is set down and denounced as an impious heretic.

What everyone wants from life is continuous and genuine happiness.

Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens. They who can treat secretly of the affairs of a nation have it absolutely under their authority; and as they plot against the enemy in time of war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace.

I shall consider human actions and desires in exactly the same manner, as though I were concerned with lines, planes and solids.

The greatest pride, or the greatest despondency, is the greatest ignorance of one's self.

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

Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare.