What is called vainglory is self-satisfaction, nourished by nothing but the good opinion of the multitude, so that when that is withdrawn, the satisfaction, that is to say, the chief good which every one loves, ceases. For this reason those who glory in the good opinion of the multitude anxiously and with daily care strive, labour, and struggle to preserve their fame. For the multitude is changeable and fickle, so that fame, if it be not preserved, soon passes away. As every one, moreover, is desirous to catch the praises of the people, one person will readily destroy the fame of another; and, consequently, as the object of contention is what is commonly thought to be the highest good, a great desire arises on the part of every one to keep down his fellows by every possible means, and he who at last comes off conqueror boasts more because he has injured another person than because he has profited himself. This glory of self-satisfaction, therefore, is indeed vain, for it is really no glory.
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He who loves God cannot endeavor that God should love him in return.
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Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.
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We are so constituted by Nature that we easily believe the things we hope for, but believe only with difficulty those we fear, and that we regard such things more or less highly than is just. This is the source of the superstitions by which men everywhere are troubled. For the rest, I don
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The highest endeavor of the mind, and the highest virtue, is to understand things by intuition.
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As for the terms good and bad, they indicate no positive quality in things regarded in themselves, but are merely modes of thinking, or notion...
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Music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good or bad to the deaf.
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If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.
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Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.
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Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself; neither do we rejoice therein, because we control our lusts, but contrariwise, because we rejoice therein, we are able to control our lusts.
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The mind has greater power over the emotions, and is less subject thereto, insofar as it understands all things to be necessary.
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Blessed are the weak who think that they are good because they have no claws.
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Do not weep do not wax indignant. Understand.
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Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.
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I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.
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My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests.
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Be not astonished at new ideas for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.
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God is a thing that thinks.
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I saw that all things I feared, and which feared me, had nothing good or bad in them save insofar as the mind was affected by them.
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To give aid to every poor man is far beyond the reach and power of every man. Care of the poor is incumbent on society as a whole.
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Will and intellect are one and the same.
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Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.
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Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.
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None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.
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