Blessedness is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself.

He who wishes to revenge injuries by reciprocal hatred will live in misery. But he who endeavors to drive away hatred by means of love, fights with pleasure and confidence; he resists equally one or many men, and scarcely needs at all the help of fortune. Those whom he conquers yield joyfully

God is not He who is, but That which is.

If anyone conceives that he is loved by another, and believes that he has given no cause for such love, he will love that other in return.

All laws which can be violated without doing any one any injury are laughed at. Nay, so far are they from doing anything to control the desires and passions of menб that, on the contrary, they direct and incite men's thoughts the more toward those very objects, for we always strive toward what is forbidden and desire the things we are not allowed to have. And men of leisure are never deficient in the ingenuity needed to enable them to outwit laws framed to regulate things which cannot be entirely forbidden... He who tries to determine everything by law will foment crime rather than lessen it.

I make this chief distinction between religion and superstition, that the latter is founded on ignorance, the former on knowledge.

Ambition is the immoderate desire for honor.