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

If the way which I have pointed out as leading to this result (i.e., power over the emotions by which the wise man surpasses the ignorant man) seems exceedingly hard, it may nevertheless be discovered. Needs must it be hard, since it is so seldom found. How would it be possible, if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labour be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.

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

Men will find that they can ... avoid far more easily the perils which beset them on all sides by united action.

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

The virtue of a free man appears equally great in refusing to face difficulties as in overcoming them.

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.