Only free men are thoroughly grateful one to another.
Schisms do not originate in a love of truth, which is a source of courtesy and gentleness, but rather in an inordinate desire for supremacy.
He whose honor depends on the opinion of the mob must day by day strive with the greatest anxiety, act and scheme in order to retain his reputation. For the mob is varied and inconsistent, and therefore if a reputation is not carefully preserved it dies quickly.
It is usually the case with most men that their nature is so constituted that they pity those who fare badly and envy those who fare well.
To comprehend an idea, a person must simultaneously accept it as true. Conscious analysis - which, depending on the idea, may occur almost immediately or with considerable effort - allows the mind to reject what it intially accepted as fact.
We strive to further the occurrence of whatever we imagine will lead to Joy, and to avert or destroy what we imagine is contrary to it, or will lead to Sadness.
All laws which can be broken without any injury to another, are counted but a laughing-stock, and are so far from bridling the desires and lusts of men, that on the contrary they stimulate them.
Men are especially intolerant of serving and being ruled by, their equals.
Sin cannot be conceived in a natural state, but only in a civil state, where it is decreed by common consent what is good or bad.
Many errors, of a truth, consist merely in the application of the wrong names of things.
There is no fear without some hope, and no hope without some fear.
The real disturbers of the peace are those who, in a free state, seek to curtail the liberty of judgment which they are unable to tyrannize over.
Men would never be superstitious, if they could govern all their circumstances by set rules, or if they were always favoured by fortune: but being frequently driven into straits where rules are useless, and being often kept fluctuating pitiably between hope and fear by the uncertainty of fortune's greedily coveted favours, they are consequently for the most part, very prone to credulity.
Except God no substance can be granted or conceived. .. Everything, I say, is in God, and all things which are made, are made by the laws of the infinite nature of God, and necessarily follows from the necessity of his essence.
In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth.
Anyone who seeks for the true causes of miracles, and strives to understand natural phenomena as an intelligent being, and not to gaze at them like a fool, is set down and denounced as an impious heretic.
Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.
A free man, who lives among ignorant people, tries as much as he can to refuse their benefits. .. He who lives under the guidance of reason endeavours as much as possible to repay his fellow's hatred, rage, contempt, etc. with love and nobleness.
The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things.
The things which ... are esteemed as the greatest good of all ... can be reduced to these three headings, to wit : Riches, Fame, and Pleasure. With these three the mind is so engrossed that it cannot scarcely think of any other good.
I do not believe anyone has reached such perfection, surpassing all others, except Christ, to whom God immediately revealed - without words or visions - the conditions which lead to salvation.
Nothing comes to pass in nature, which can be set down to a flaw therein; for nature is always the same, and everywhere one and the same in her efficacy and power of action: that is, nature's laws and ordinances, whereby all things come to pass and change from one form to another, are everywhere and always the same; so that there should be one and the same method of understanding the nature of all things whatsoever, namely, through nature's universal laws and rules.
Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men.
After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else: whether, in fact, there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness.
Love is pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause, and hatred pain accompanied by the idea of an external cause.
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