Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.

He, who knows how to distinguish between true and false, must have an adequate idea of true and false.

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.

Love is nothing but joy accompanied with the idea of an eternal cause.

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.

Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens. They who can treat secretly of the affairs of a nation have it absolutely under their authority; and as they plot against the enemy in time of war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace.

Desire nothing for yourself, which you do not desire for others.