self-preservation is the primary and only foundation of virtue.

A man is as much affected pleasurably or painfully by the image of a thing past or future as by the image of a thing present.

None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.

Except God no substance can be granted or conceived. .. Everything, I say, is in God, and all things which are made, are made by the laws of the infinite nature of God, and necessarily follows from the necessity of his essence.

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

. . . to know the order of nature, and regard the universe as orderly is the highest function of the mind.

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