“I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.”

“I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.”

“The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.”

“The less the mind understands and the more things it perceives, the greater its power of feigning is; and the more things it understands, the more that power is diminished.”

“The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.”

“Do not weep. Do not wax indignant. Understand.”

“I should attempt to treat human vice and folly geometrically... the passions of hatred, anger, envy, and so on, considered in themselves, follow from the necessity and efficacy of nature... I shall, therefore, treat the nature and strength of the emotion in exactly the same manner, as though I were concerned with lines, planes, and solids.”