The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.

Ceremonies are no aid to blessedness.

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.

Of all the things that are beyond my power, I value nothing more highly than to be allowed the honor of entering into bonds of friendship with people who sincerely love truth. For, of things beyond our power, I believe there is nothing in the world which we can love with tranquility except such men.

What everyone wants from life is continuous and genuine happiness.

I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.

But if men would give heed to the nature of substance they would doubt less concerning the Proposition that Existence appertains to the nature of substance: rather they would reckon it an axiom above all others, and hold it among common opinions. For then by substance they would understand that which is in itself, and through itself is conceived, or rather that whose knowledge does not depend on the knowledge of any other thing.