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

None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.

It is usually the case with most men that their nature is so constituted that they pity those who fare badly and envy those who fare well.

I should attempt to treat human vice and folly geometrically... the passions of hatred, anger, envy, and so on, considered in themselves, follow from the necessity and efficacy of nature... I shall, therefore, treat the nature and strength of the emotion in exactly the same manner, as though I were concerned with lines, planes, and solids.

The more you struggle to live, the less you live. Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing. Instead, surrender to what is real within you, for that alone is sure....you are above everything distressing.

The supreme mystery of despotism, its prop and stay, is to keep men in a state of deception, and with the specious title of religion to cloak the fear by which they must be held in check, so that they will fight for their servitude as if for salvation.

Hatred which is completely vanquished by love passes into love: and love is thereupon greater than if hatred had not preceded it.