It is sure that those are most desirous of honour or glory who cry out loudest of its abuse and the vanity of the world.

The multitude always strains after rarities and exceptions, and thinks little of the gifts of nature; so that, when prophecy is talked of, ordinary knowledge is not supposed to be included. Nevertheless it has as much right as any other to be called Divine.

Men are especially intolerant of serving and being ruled by, their equals.

Measure, time and number are nothing but modes of thought or rather of imagination.

All the objects pursued by the multitude not only bring no remedy that tends to preserve our being, but even act as hinderances, causing the death not seldom of those who possess them, and always of those who are possessed by them.

The highest endeavor of the mind, and the highest virtue, it to understand things by intuition.

Yet nature cannot be contravened, but preserves a fixed and immutable order.