Laws which prescribe what everyone must believe, and forbid men to say or write anything against this or that opinion, are often passed to gratify, or rather to appease the anger of those who cannot abide independent minds.

If anyone conceives, that an object of his love joins itself to another with closer bonds of friendship than he himself has attained to, he will be affected with hatred towards the loved object and with envy towards his rival.

If anyone conceives that he is loved by another, and believes that he has given no cause for such love, he will love that other in return.

In the mind there is no absolute or free will.

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

Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.

Those who wish to seek out the cause of miracles and to understand the things of nature as philosophers, and not to stare at them in astonishment like fools, are soon considered heretical and impious, and proclaimed as such by those whom the mob adores as the interpreters of nature and the gods.