I can control my passions and emotions if I can understand their nature

I do not believe anyone has reached such perfection, surpassing all others, except Christ, to whom God immediately revealed - without words or visions - the conditions which lead to salvation.

In the mind there is no absolute or free will.

From what has been said we can clearly understand the nature of Love and Hate. Love is nothing else but pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause: Hate is nothing else but pain accompanied by the idea of an external cause. We further see, that he who loves necessarily endeavors to have, and to keep present to him, the object of his love; while he who hates endeavors to remove and destroy the object of his hatred.

If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.

He that can carp in the most eloquent or acute manner at the weakness of the human mind is held by his fellows as almost divine.

Laws which prescribe what everyone must believe, and forbid men to say or write anything against this or that opinion, are often passed to gratify, or rather to appease the anger of those who cannot abide independent minds.