If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.
Category Archive: November 24
Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.
The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.
Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.
Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.
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.
None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.
Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men.
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.
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.