Human infirmity in moderating and checking the emotions I name bondage : for, when a man is a prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune : so much so, that he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse.

Measure, time and number are nothing but modes of thought or rather of imagination.

All the objects pursued by the multitude not only bring no remedy that tends to preserve our being, but even act as hinderances, causing the death not seldom of those who possess them, and always of those who are possessed by them.

A man is as much affected pleasurably or painfully by the image of a thing past or future as by the image of a thing present.

Big fish eat small fish with as much right as they have power.

I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused.

God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things.