The greatest secret of monarchic rule...is to keep men deceived and to cloak in the specious name of religion the fear by which they must be checked, so that they will fight for slavery as they would for salvation, and will think it not shameful, but a most honorable achievement, to give their life and blood that one man may have a ground for boasting.

Except God no substance can be granted or conceived. .. Everything, I say, is in God, and all things which are made, are made by the laws of the infinite nature of God, and necessarily follows from the necessity of his essence.

All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.

If a man had begun to hate an object of his love, so that love is thoroughly destroyed, he will, causes being equal, regard it with more hatred than if he had never loved it, and his hatred will be in proportion to the strength of his former love.

In the state of nature, wrong-doing is impossible ; or, if anyone does wrong, it is to himself, not to another.

Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.