Love or hatred towards a thing, which we conceive to be free, must, other things being similar, be greater than if it were felt towards a thing acting by necessity.
In so far as the mind sees things in their eternal aspect, it participates in eternity.
The virtue of a free man appears equally great in refusing to face difficulties as in overcoming them.
Ceremonies are no aid to blessedness.
Measure, time and number are nothing but modes of thought or rather of imagination.
Blessedness is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself.
According as each has been educated, so he repents of or glories in his actions.
The proper study of a wise man is not how to die but how to live.
He that can carp in the most eloquent or acute manner at the weakness of the human mind is held by his fellows as almost divine.
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.
As men's habits of mind differ, so that some more readily embrace one form of faith, some another, for what moves one to pray may move another to scoff, I conclude ... that everyone should be free to choose for himself the foundations of his creed, and that faith should be judged only by its fruits.
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.
I do not presume that I have found the best philosophy, I know that I understand the true philosophy.
He who has a true idea, knows at that same time that he has a true idea, nor can he doubt concerning the truth of the thing.
True knowledge of good and evil as we possess is merely abstract or general, and the judgment which we pass on the order of things and the connection of causes, with a view to determining what is good or bad for us in the present, is rather imaginary than real.
There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.
Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.
Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear. [They are the two sides of a coin, so learning how to manage fear through learning, understanding, rationality, controlled imagination, preparation, mental focus (including distraction) and a gratitude attitude is very helpful.]
It is not possible that we should remember that we existed before our body, for our can bear no trace of such existence, neither can eternity be defined in terms of time or have any relation to time. But notwithstanding, we feel and know that we are eternal.
If we love something similar to ourselves, we endeavor, as far as we can, to bring it about that it should love us in return.
In regard to intellect and true virtue, every nation is on a par with the rest, and God has not in these respects chosen one people rather than another.
All laws which can be violated without doing any one any injury are laughed at. Nay, so far are they from doing anything to control the desires and passions of menб that, on the contrary, they direct and incite men's thoughts the more toward those very objects, for we always strive toward what is forbidden and desire the things we are not allowed to have. And men of leisure are never deficient in the ingenuity needed to enable them to outwit laws framed to regulate things which cannot be entirely forbidden... He who tries to determine everything by law will foment crime rather than lessen it.
Man can, indeed, act contrarily to the decrees of God, as far as they have been written like laws in the minds of ourselves or the prophets, but against that eternal decree of God, which is written in universal nature, and has regard to the course of nature as a whole, he can do nothing.
In the state of nature, wrong-doing is impossible; or, if anyone does wrong, it is to himself, not to another. For no one by the law of nature is bound to please another, unless he chooses, nor to hold anything to be good or evil, but what he himself, according to his own temperament, pronounces to be so; and, to speak generally, nothing is forbidden by the law of nature, except what is beyond everyone's power.
How would it be possible if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labor be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.
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