A free man thinks of nothing less than of death and his wisdom is a meditation. Not on death but on life.
We feel and know that we are eternal.
The world would be much happier if men were as fully able to keep silence as they are to speak.
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.
If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.
The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.
Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.
Everything excellent is a difficult as it is rare.
The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.
Desire is the essence of a man.
Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.
As nature preserves a fixed and immutable order; it must clearly follow that miracles are only intelligible as a relation to human opinions and merely mean events of which the natural cause cannot be explained by a reference to any ordinary occuren.
When a man is prey to his emotions, he is not his own master.
Those who cannot manage themselves and their private affairs will far less be capable of caring for the public interest.
