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.

Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.

A free man thinks of nothing less than of death; and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life.

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

But if men would give heed to the nature of substance they would doubt less concerning the Proposition that Existence appertains to the nature of substance: rather they would reckon it an axiom above all others, and hold it among common opinions. For then by substance they would understand that which is in itself, and through itself is conceived, or rather that whose knowledge does not depend on the knowledge of any other thing.

God is a thing that thinks.

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