We can always get along better by reason and love of truth than by worry of conscience and remorse...we should strive to keep worry from our life.

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

The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.

Desire is the very essence of man

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.

To understand something is to be delivered of it.

I should attempt to treat human vice and folly geometrically... the passions of hatred, anger, envy, and so on, considered in themselves, follow from the necessity and efficacy of nature... I shall, therefore, treat the nature and strength of the emotion in exactly the same manner, as though I were concerned with lines, planes, and solids.