1. “The most tyrannical of governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts.”
2. “Nothing in nature is by chance… Something appears to be chance only because of our lack of knowledge.”
3. “Blessedness is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself.”
4. “The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.”
5. “Pride is pleasure arising from a man’s thinking too highly of himself.”
6. “All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.”
7. “Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.”
8. “Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.”
9. “If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.”
10. “Ambition is the immoderate desire for power.”
11. “When a man is prey to his emotions, he is not his own master.”
12. “Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men.”
13. “There is no hope unmingled with fear, no fear unmingled with hope.”
14. “Vice will exist so long as people exist.”
15. “Nature offers nothing that an be called this man’s rather than another’s; but under nature everything belongs to all.”
16. “Will and intellect are one and the same thing.”
17. “None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be first and are not.”
18. “All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.”
19. “Minds, however, are conquered not by arms, but by love and nobility.”
20. “Those who know the true use of money, and regulate the measure of wealth according to their needs, live contended with few things.”
