Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.

Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.

In the mind there is no absolute or free will.

A free man thinks of nothing less than of death; and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life.

The terms good and bad indicate no positive quality in things regarded in themselves, but are merely modes of thinking or notions, which we form from the comparison of things one with another. Thus one and the same thing can be at the same time good, bad, and indifferent. For instance, music is good for him that is melancholy, bad for him that mourns; for him that is deaf; it is neither good nor bad.

Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men.

Everyone endeavors as much as possible to make others love what he loves, and to hate what he hates... This effort to make everyone approve what we love or hate is in truth ambition, and so we see that each person by nature desires that other persons should live according to his way of thinking.