God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things.

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

We are so constituted by Nature that we easily believe the things we hope for, but believe only with difficulty those we fear, and that we regard such things more or less highly than is just. This is the source of the superstitions by which men everywhere are troubled. For the rest, I don

In the state of nature, wrong-doing is impossible; or, if anyone does wrong, it is to himself, not to another. For no one by the law of nature is bound to please another, unless he chooses, nor to hold anything to be good or evil, but what he himself, according to his own temperament, pronounces to be so; and, to speak generally, nothing is forbidden by the law of nature, except what is beyond everyone's power.

If we love something similar to ourselves, we endeavor, as far as we can, to bring it about that it should love us in return.

Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare.

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