Men would never be superstitious, if they could govern all their circumstances by set rules, or if they were always favoured by fortune: but being frequently driven into straits where rules are useless, and being often kept fluctuating pitiably between hope and fear by the uncertainty of fortune's greedily coveted favours, they are consequently for the most part, very prone to credulity.

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

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.

Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.

He who loves God cannot endeavor that God should love him in return.

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

If slavery, barbarism and desolation are to be called peace, men can have no worse misfortune.