Vienna, Austria - 20071. “After experience had taught me that all things which frequently take place in ordinary life are vain and futile, and when I saw that all the things I feared, and which feared me, had nothing good or bad in them save in so far as the mind was affected by them; I determined at last to inquire whether there was anything which might be truly good, and able to communicate its goodness, and by which the mind might be affected to the exclusion of all other things; I determined, I say, to inquire whether I might discover and attain the faculty of enjoying throughout eternity continual supreme happiness. . . .”
2. "All excellent things are as difficult as they are rare."
3. “As for the terms good and bad, they indicate no positive quality in things regarded in themselves, but are merely modes of thinking, or notions which we form from the comparison of things with one another. Thus one and the same thing can be at the same time good, bad, and indifferent. For instance music is good for him that is melancholy, bad for him that mourns; for him that is deaf it it neither good nor bad.”
4. “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.”
5. “But love directed towards the eternal and infinite feeds the mind with pure joy, and is free from all sadness. Wherefore it is greatly to be desired, and to be sought after with our whole might. . . and although I could perceive this quite clearly in my mind, I could not at once lay aside all greed and lust and honor. . . .”
6. “Desire is the very essence of man.”
7. "Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand."
8. “Everyone has as much right as he has might.”
9. “He whose honor depends on the opinion of the mob must day by day strive with the greatest anxiety, act and scheme in order to retain his reputation. For the mob is varied and inconsistent, and therefore if a reputation is not carefully preserved it dies quickly.”
10. ”I believe that, if a triangle could speak, it would say, in like manner, that God is eminently triangular, while a circle would say that the divine nature is eminently circular. Thus each would ascribe to God its own attributes, would assume itself to be like God, and look on everything else as ill-shaped.”
11. "I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them."
12. “In refusing benefits caution must be used lest we seem to despise or to refuse them for fear of having to repay them in kind.”
13. “In the Mind there is no absolute, or free, will, but the Mind is determined to will this or that by a cause, which is also determined by another, and this again by another, and so to infinity.”
14. “Man is a social animal.”
15. “Nature abhors a vacuum.”
16. “One thing I could see, and that was that so long as the mind was turned upon this new way, it was deflected, and seriously engaged therein; which was a great comfort to me; for I saw that those evils were not such as would not yield to remedy: and though at first these intervals were rare and lasted but a short while, yet afterwards the true good became more and more evident to me, and these intervals more frequent and of longer duration.”
17. “Peace is not the absence of war; it is a virtue; a state of mind; a disposition for benevolence; confidence; and justice.”
18. "Pride is pleasure arising from a man's thinking too highly of himself."
19. "The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free."
20. “The perfection of things is to be reckoned only from their own nature and power; things are not more or less perfect, according as they delight or offend human senses, or according as they are serviceable or repugnant to mankind.”
21. “We feel and know that we are eternal.”
