So long as a man imagines that he cannot do this or that, so long as he is determined not to do it; and consequently so long as it is impossible to him that he should do it.

Reality and perfection are synonymous.

Everyone has as much right as he has might.

For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from force of character: for obedience is the constant will to execute what, by the general decree of the commonwealth, ought to be done.

He that can carp in the most eloquent or acute manner at the weakness of the human mind is held by his fellows as almost divine.

Those who wish to seek out the cause of miracles and to understand the things of nature as philosophers, and not to stare at them in astonishment like fools, are soon considered heretical and impious, and proclaimed as such by those whom the mob adores as the interpreters of nature and the gods.

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.