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.

Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.

Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak. But experience more than sufficiently teaches that men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues.

Will and intellect are one and the same thing.

In regard to intellect and true virtue, every nation is on a par with the rest, and God has not in these respects chosen one people rather than another.

Big fish eat small fish with as much right as they have power.

self-preservation is the primary and only foundation of virtue.