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

[Believers] are but triflers who, when they cannot explain a thing, run back to the will of God; this is, truly, a ridiculous way of expressing ignorance.

Nature offers nothing that can be called this man's rather than another's; but under nature everything belongs to all.

Care of the poor is incumbent on society as a whole.

Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.

Pride is pleasure arising from a man's thinking too highly of himself.

If we conceive that anyone loves, desires, or hates anything which we ourselves love, desire, or hate, we shall thereupon regard the thing in question with more steadfast love, etc. On the contrary, if we think that anyone shrinks from something that we love, we shall undergo vacillation of the soul.