The safest way for a state is to lay down the rule that religion is comprised solely in the exercise of charity and justice, and that the rights of rulers in sacred, no less than in secular matters, should merely have to do with actions, but that every man should think what he likes and say what he thinks.

He who seeks equality between unequals seeks an absurdity.

To understand something is to be delivered of it.

I can control my passions and emotions if I can understand their nature

I do not presume that I have found the best philosophy, I know that I understand the true philosophy.

The more we understand individual things, the more we understand God.

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.