Laws which can be broken without any wrong to one's neighbor are a laughing-stock; and such laws, instead of restraining the appetites and lusts of mankind, serve rather to heighten them. Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata [we always resist prohibitions, and yearn for what is denied us].

Only free men are thoroughly grateful one to another.

To comprehend an idea, a person must simultaneously accept it as true. Conscious analysis - which, depending on the idea, may occur almost immediately or with considerable effort - allows the mind to reject what it intially accepted as fact.

Simply from the fact that we have regarded a thing with the emotion of pleasure or pain, though that thing be not the efficient cause of the emotion, we can either love or hate it.

If we love something similar to ourselves, we endeavor, as far as we can, to bring it about that it should love us in return.

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

He who hates anyone will endeavor to do him an injury, unless he fears that a greater injury will thereby accrue to himself; on the other hand, he who loves anyone will, by the same law, seek to benefit him.