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.

The virtue of a free man appears equally great in refusing to face difficulties as in overcoming them.

In the mind there is no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined to wish this or that by a cause, which has also been determined by another cause, and this last by another cause, and so on to infinity.

Care of the poor is incumbent on society as a whole.

The most tyrannical of governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts.

Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.

Sin cannot be conceived in a natural state, but only in a civil state, where it is decreed by common consent what is good or bad.