Further conceive, I beg, that a stone, while continuing in motion, should be capable of thinking and knowing, that it is endeavoring, as far as it can, to continue to move. Such a stone, being conscious merely of its own endeavor and not at all indifferent, would believe itself to be completely free, and would think that it continued in motion solely because of its own wish. This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined.

One and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent, e.g., music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf.

Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.

If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.

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.

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

I can control my passions and emotions if I can understand their nature