Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice. Read Summary
Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious. Read Summary
The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak. Read Summary
I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them. Read Summary
I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them. Read Summary
Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd. Read Summary
True virtue is life under the direction of reason. Read Summary
Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear. Read Summary
One and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent, e.g., music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf. Read Summary
I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion. Read Summary
Nothing in the universe is contingent, but all things are conditioned to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of the divine nature. Read Summary
Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character. Read Summary
I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused. Read Summary
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. Read Summary
All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare. Read Summary
If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past. Read Summary
The greatest pride, or the greatest despondency, is the greatest ignorance of one's self. Read Summary
We feel and know that we are eternal. Read Summary
All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love. Read Summary
It may easily come to pass that a vain man may become proud and imagine himself pleasing to all when he is in reality a universal nuisance. Read Summary