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

Philosophers conceive of the passions which harass us as vices into which men fall by their own fault, and, therefore, generally deride, bewail, or blame them, or execrate them, if they wish to seem unusually pious.

He who regulates everything by laws, is more likely to arouse vices than reform them.

The supreme mystery of despotism, its prop and stay, is to keep men in a state of deception, and with the specious title of religion to cloak the fear by which they must be held in check, so that they will fight for their servitude as if for salvation.

When a man is prey to his emotions, he is not his own master.

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.

The mind has greater power over the emotions, and is less subject thereto, insofar as it understands all things to be necessary.