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 less the mind understands and the more things it perceives, the greater its power of feigning is; and the more things it understands, the more that power is diminished.

We are so constituted by Nature that we easily believe the things we hope for, but believe only with difficulty those we fear, and that we regard such things more or less highly than is just. This is the source of the superstitions by which men everywhere are troubled. For the rest, I don

The safest way for a state is to lay down the rule that religion is comprised solely in the exercise of charity and justice, and that the rights of rulers in sacred, no less than in secular matters, should merely have to do with actions, but that every man should think what he likes and say what he thinks.

. . . to know the order of nature, and regard the universe as orderly is the highest function of the mind.

The proper study of a wise man is not how to die but how to live.

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