Baruch Spinoza Quotes:

If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.

Topics: Philosophical, Learning, Past

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

Topics: Wisdom, Philosophical, Effort, Human Actions

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

source: - "Champions of a Free Society: Ideas of Capitalism's Philosophers and Economists" by Edward Wayne Younkins, Lexington Books, (p. 83), 2008.

Topics: Inspirational, Education, Understanding

Nothing in nature is by chance... Something appears to be chance only because of our lack of knowledge.

Topics: Life, Chance, Lack Of Knowledge

The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.

Topics: Love, Emotional, Emotion

No matter how thin you slice it, there will always be two sides.

source: - "The New York Comics And Picture-story Symposium: Jennifer George And Charles Kochman", therumpus.net. March 4, 2014.

Topics: Two Sides, Two, Matter

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.

Topics: Truth, Science, Ideas

Everything in nature is a cause from which there flows some effect.

Topics: Flow, Causes

Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.

Topics: Inspirational, Without Hope

Happiness is not the reward of virtue, but is virtue itself; nor do we delight in happiness because we restrain from our lusts; but on the contrary, because we delight in it, therefore we are able to restrain them.

Topics: Lust, Delight, Rewards

We feel and know that we are eternal.

Topics: Awareness, Feels

Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.

Topics: Wisdom, Peace, Military

The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.

Topics: Philosophical, Men, Silence

What everyone wants from life is continuous and genuine happiness.

Topics: Life, Want, Genuine Happiness, I Just Want To Be Happy

It may easily come to pass that a vain man may become proud and imagine himself pleasing to all when he is in reality a universal nuisance.

Topics: Reality, Men, Nuisance

Further conceive, I beg, that a stone, while continuing in motion, should be capable of thinking and knowing, that it is endeavoring, as far as it can, to continue to move. Such a stone, being conscious merely of its own endeavor and not at all indifferent, would believe itself to be completely free, and would think that it continued in motion solely because of its own wish. This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined.

Topics: Believe, Moving, Men

God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things.

Topics: Philosophical, Causes, Pantheism, Transient

Pride is pleasure arising from a man's thinking too highly of himself.

Topics: Philosophical, Pride, Men

Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens. They who can treat secretly of the affairs of a nation have it absolutely under their authority; and as they plot against the enemy in time of war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace.

Topics: War, Tyrants, Evil

The more you struggle to live, the less you live. Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing. Instead, surrender to what is real within you, for that alone is sure....you are above everything distressing.

Topics: Giving Up, Real, Struggle, Distressing

Hatred which is completely vanquished by love passes into love: and love is thereupon greater than if hatred had not preceded it...

Topics: Life, Love Is, Hatred

Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.

Topics: Philosophical, Pantheism

He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason.

Topics: Philosophical, Guidance, Reason

How would it be possible if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labor be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.

Topics: Men, Hands, Excellent

Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare.

Topics: Excellent, Difficult

So long as a man imagines that he cannot do this or that, so long as he is determined not to do it; and consequently so long as it is impossible to him that he should do it.

Topics: Men, Long, Determined

In so far as the mind sees things in their eternal aspect, it participates in eternity.

Topics: Mind, Eternity, Aspect

Happiness is a virtue, not its reward.

Topics: Happy, Rewards, Virtue, Virtue And Happiness

Laws which prescribe what everyone must believe, and forbid men to say or write anything against this or that opinion, are often passed to gratify, or rather to appease the anger of those who cannot abide independent minds.

Topics: Believe, Writing, Independent

I believe that a triangle, if it could speak, would say that God is eminently triangular, and a circle that the divine nature is eminently circular; and thus would every one ascribe his own attributes to God.

Topics: Believe, Circles, Triangles

The most tyrannical of governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts.

Topics: Government, Opinion, Crime

Blessedness is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself.

Topics: Rewards, Virtue, Blessedness

There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.

Topics: Fear, Philosophical, Breast Cancer, Inspirational Cancer, Inspiring Cancer

All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.

Topics: Happy, Philosophical, Quality

If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.

Topics: Philosophical, Men, Long, Born Free

Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak. But experience more than sufficiently teaches that men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more easily than their words.

Topics: Men, Desire, Tongue

Will and intellect are one and the same thing.

Topics: Intellect

All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.

Topics: Inspirational, Excellence, Philosopher

Indulge yourself in pleasures only in so far as they are necessary for the preservation of health.

Topics: Healthy, Pleasure, Preservation, Indulge Yourself

He who seeks equality between unequals seeks an absurdity.

source: - "Tractatus Politicus (TP)". Political paper by Baruch Spinoza, 1677.

Topics: Absurdity

No to laugh, not to lament, not to detest, but to understand.

Topics: Laughing, Lament

There is no fear without some hope, and no hope without some fear.

Topics: No Fear, No Hope

Desire nothing for yourself, which you do not desire for others.

Topics: Desire

I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.

Topics: God, Faith, Hope

. . . to know the order of nature, and regard the universe as orderly is the highest function of the mind.

Topics: Order, Mind, Function, Orderly

Things could not have been brought into being by God in any manner or in any order different from that which has in fact obtained.

Topics: God, Order, Different

God is the efficient cause not only of the existence of things, but also of their essence. Corr. Individual things are nothing but modifications of the attributes of God, or modes by which the attributes of God are expressed in a fixed and definite manner.

Topics: God, Essence, Causes, Modification, Attributes Of God

Nothing comes to pass in nature, which can be set down to a flaw therein; for nature is always the same and everywhere one and thesame in her efficiency and power of action; that is, nature's laws and ordinances whereby all things come to pass and change from one form to another, are everywhere and always; so that there should be one and the same method of understanding the nature of all things whatsoever, namely, through nature's universal laws and rules.

Topics: Nature, Law, Understanding, Laws And Rules, Universal Laws

The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things.

Topics: Order, Ideas, Connections

Men would never be superstitious, if they could govern all their circumstances by set rules, or if they were always favoured by fortune: but being frequently driven into straits where rules are useless, and being often kept fluctuating pitiably between hope and fear by the uncertainty of fortune's greedily coveted favours, they are consequently for the most part, very prone to credulity.

Topics: Men, Religion, Useless

I have tried sedulously not to laugh at the acts of man, nor to lament them, nor to detest them, but to understand them.

Topics: Men, Laughing, Understanding, Lament

No one doubts but that we imagine time from the very fact that we imagine other bodies to be moved slower or faster or equally fast. We are accustomed to determine duration by the aid of some measure of motion.

Topics: Doubt, Body, Duration

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

Topics: Philosophical, Virtue, Reason

If we conceive that anyone loves, desires, or hates anything which we ourselves love, desire, or hate, we shall thereupon regard the thing in question with more steadfast love, etc. On the contrary, if we think that anyone shrinks from something that we love, we shall undergo vacillation of the soul.

Topics: Life, Hate, Thinking, Steadfast Love, Vacillation

Simply from the fact that we have regarded a thing with the emotion of pleasure or pain, though that thing be not the efficient cause of the emotion, we can either love or hate it.

Topics: Life, Pain, Hate, Love Or Hate

From what has been said we can clearly understand the nature of Love and Hate. Love is nothing else but pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause: Hate is nothing else but pain accompanied by the idea of an external cause. We further see, that he who loves necessarily endeavors to have, and to keep present to him, the object of his love; while he who hates endeavors to remove and destroy the object of his hatred.

Topics: Life, Pain, Hate

Except God no substance can be granted or conceived. .. Everything, I say, is in God, and all things which are made, are made by the laws of the infinite nature of God, and necessarily follows from the necessity of his essence.

Topics: Law, Essence, Substance

If the way which I have pointed out as leading to this result (i.e., power over the emotions by which the wise man surpasses the ignorant man) seems exceedingly hard, it may nevertheless be discovered. Needs must it be hard, since it is so seldom found. How would it be possible, if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labour be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.

Topics: Wise, Men, Hands, Nevertheless

None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.

Topics: Philosophical, Taken, Wish

To understand something is to be delivered of it.

Everything great is just as difficult to realize as it is rare to find.

Topics: Realizing, Difficult

Many errors, of a truth, consist merely in the application of the wrong names of things.

Topics: Truth, Knowledge, Errors, Nomenclature

Measure, time and number are nothing but modes of thought or rather of imagination.

Topics: Science, Numbers, Imagination

Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.

Topics: Men, Desire, Tongue

A good thing which prevents us from enjoying a greater good is in truth an evil.

Topics: Evil, Good Things, Enjoy, Greater Good

It is usually the case with most men that their nature is so constituted that they pity those who fare badly and envy those who fare well.

Topics: Men, Envy, Human Nature

It is sure that those are most desirous of honour or glory who cry out loudest of its abuse and the vanity of the world.

Topics: Vanity, Abuse, Honor

Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.

Topics: Nature, Philosophical, Environment

We are so constituted by Nature that we easily believe the things we hope for, but believe only with difficulty those we fear, and that we regard such things more or less highly than is just. This is the source of the superstitions by which men everywhere are troubled. For the rest, I don

Topics: Hope, Believe, Men

The idea, which constitutes the actual being of the human mind, is not simple, but compounded of a great number of ideas.

Topics: Simple, Ideas, Numbers

The greatest good is the knowledge of the union which the mind has with the whole nature.

Topics: Mind, Unions

All laws which can be violated without doing any one any injury are laughed at. Nay, so far are they from doing anything to control the desires and passions of men that, on the contrary, they direct and incite men's thoughts the more toward those very objects, for we always strive toward what is forbidden and desire the things we are not allowed to have. And men of leisure are never deficient in the ingenuity needed to enable them to outwit laws framed to regulate things which cannot be entirely forbidden... He who tries to determine everything by law will foment crime rather than lessen it.

Topics: Passion, Men, Law

Blessed are the weak who think that they are good because they have no claws.

Topics: Blessed, Thinking, Weak

Self-complacency is pleasure accompanied by the idea of oneself as cause.

Topics: Philosophical, Self, Ideas

He who lives according to the guidance of reason strives as much as possible to repay the hatred, anger, or contempt of others towards himself with love or generosity. ...hatred is increased by reciprocal hatred, and, on the other hand, can be extinguished by love, so that hatred passes into love.

Topics: Life, Hands, Generosity

A man is as much affected pleasurably or painfully by the image of a thing past or future as by the image of a thing present.

Topics: Past, Men, Anticipation, Things Past

...The body is affected by the image of the thing, in the same way as if the thing were actually present.

Topics: Body, Way, Anticipation

We can always get along better by reason and love of truth than by worry of conscience and remorse...we should strive to keep worry from our life.

Topics: Worry, And Love, Anticipation, Reason And Love

True knowledge of good and evil as we possess is merely abstract or general, and the judgment which we pass on the order of things and the connection of causes, with a view to determining what is good or bad for us in the present, is rather imaginary than real.

Topics: Gratitude, Real, Views

Reason connot defeat emotion, an emotion can only be displaced or overcome by a stronger emotion.

Topics: Stronger, Overcoming, Emotion

What Paul says about Peter tells us more about Paul than about Peter.

Topics: Silence, Peter

Men believe themselves to be free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (1981). “Ethics”, p.99, Commodius Vicus

Topics: Believe, Men, Causes

God is not He who is, but That which is.

The highest endeavor of the mind, and the highest virtue, it to understand things by intuition.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (2014). “The Road to Inner Freedom: The Ethics”, p.77, Open Road Media

Topics: Wisdom, Understanding, Intuition

The holy word of God is on everyone's lips...but...we see almost everyone presenting their own versions of God's word, with the sole purpose of using religion as a pretext for making others think as they do.

Topics: Thinking, Purpose, Lips, Presenting

When a man is prey to his emotions, he is not his own master.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (1981). “Ethics”, p.163, Commodius Vicus

Topics: Men, Emotion, Prey

The supreme mystery of despotism, its prop and stay, is to keep men in a state of deception, and with the specious title of religion to cloak the fear by which they must be held in check, so that they will fight for their servitude as if for salvation.

Topics: Fighting, Men, Deception, Servitude

Freedom is self-determination.

Topics: Determination, Self, Self Determination

Nature is satisfied with little; and if she is, I am also.

source: - "The Story of Philosophy" by Will Durant, (p. 176), 1933.

Topics: Littles, Satisfied, Ifs

Let unswerving integrity be your watchword.

Topics: Integrity, Ethics, Moral Ethics

Minds are not conquered by force, but by love and high-mindedness.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (2014). “The Road to Inner Freedom: The Ethics”, p.65, Open Road Media

Topics: Life, Mind, Force

Sadness diminishes a man's powers

Topics: Sadness, Men, Diminish

[Believers] are but triflers who, when they cannot explain a thing, run back to the will of God; this is, truly, a ridiculous way of expressing ignorance.

Topics: Running, Ignorance, Way

In the mind there is no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined to wish this or that by a cause, which has also been determined by another cause, and this last by another cause, and so on to infinity.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (1981). “Ethics”, p.82, Commodius Vicus

Topics: Mind, Wish, Lasts, Determinism

Nature has no goal in view, and final causes are only human imaginings.

Topics: Views, Goal, Finals

Philosophy has no end in view save truth; faith looks for nothing but obedience and piety.

Topics: Philosophy, Views, Religion

He who loves God cannot endeavor that God should love him in return.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (2006). “The Essential Spinoza: Ethics and Related Writings”, p.151, Hackett Publishing

Topics: Return, God Love, Should

Hatred is increased by being reciprocated, and can on the other hand be destroyed by love.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (1981). “Ethics”, p.129, Commodius Vicus

Topics: Life, Hands, Hatred

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

Topics: Happiness, Philosophical, Acceptance, Developmental, Indignant

We must take care not to admit as true anything, which is only probable. For when one falsity has been let in, infinite others follow.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (2014). “Letters to Friend and Foe”, p.70, Open Road Media

Topics: Care, Infinite, Falsity

Superstition, then, is engendered, preserved, and fostered by fear.

source: - "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus". Book by Baruch Spinoza, Preface, 1670.

Topics: Superstitions

He who wishes to revenge injuries by reciprocal hatred will live in misery. But he who endeavors to drive away hatred by means of love, fights with pleasure and confidence; he resists equally one or many men, and scarcely needs at all the help of fortune. Those whom he conquers yield joyfully

Topics: Revenge, Mean, Fighting

Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.

Topics: Humble, Humility, Ambitious, Jealousy And Envy, Jealousy Envy

Those who know the true use of money, and regulate the measure of wealth according to their needs, live contented with few things.

Topics: Needs, Use, Wealth

The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed along with the body, but something of it remains, which is eternal.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (2002). “Spinoza: The Complete Works”, p.374, Hackett Publishing

Topics: Soul, Mind, Body

the ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain by fear, nor to exact obedience, but to free every man from fear that he may live in all possible security... In fact the true aim of government is liberty.

Topics: Men, Liberty, May

He, who knows how to distinguish between true and false, must have an adequate idea of true and false.

Topics: Ideas, True And False, Adequate

I can control my passions and emotions if I can understand their nature

Topics: Philosophical, Passion, Emotion

He who regulates everything by laws, is more likely to arouse vices than reform them.

Topics: Law, Liberty, Vices

Pride is over-estimation of oneself by reason of self-love.

Topics: Pride, Self, Reason

Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men's natural abilities as to restrain them.

Topics: School, Men, Historical, Natural Ability

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

Topics: Philosophical, Firsts, Virtue

Everyone endeavors as much as possible to make others love what he loves, and to hate what he hates... This effort to make everyone approve what we love or hate is in truth ambition, and so we see that each person by nature desires that other persons should live according to his way of thinking.

Topics: Hate, Ambition, Thinking, Love Or Hate

Men who are ruled by reason desire nothing for themselves which they would not wish for all mankind.

Topics: Men, Wish, Desire

After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else: whether, in fact, there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (2015). “How to Improve Your Mind”, p.8, Open Road Media

Topics: Real, Discovery, Mind, Unending

Big fish eat small fish with as much right as they have power.

Topics: Lakes, Sea, Fishing, Small Fish

Ambition is the immoderate desire for honor.

source: - "The Essential Spinoza: Ethics and Related Writings".

Topics: Philosophical, Ambition, Power, Desire For Power

Freedom is absolutely necessary for the progress in science and the liberal arts.

Topics: Art, Freedom, Philosophical, Liberal Arts, Progress In Science

A free man thinks of nothing less than of death; and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life.

source: - 1677 Ethics, bk.4, prop.67.

Topics: Life, Men, Thinking

The eternal wisdom of God ... has shown itself forth in all things, but chiefly in the mind of man, and most of all in Jesus Christ.

source: - Letter 21 (73) to Henry Oldenburg, November 1675.

Topics: Jesus, Men, Mind

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.

source: - "Ethics Geometrically Demonstrated". Book by Baruch Spinoza, Part IV : Of Human Bondage, or the Strength of the Emotions, Appendix, 17, 1677.

Topics: Men, Careers, Giving, Incumbents, Riches And Poors

The greatest secret of monarchic rule...is to keep men deceived and to cloak in the specious name of religion the fear by which they must be checked, so that they will fight for slavery as they would for salvation, and will think it not shameful, but a most honorable achievement, to give their life and blood that one man may have a ground for boasting.

Topics: Fighting, Men, Thinking

I saw that all things I feared, and which feared me, had nothing good or bad in them save insofar as the mind was affected by them.

Topics: Mind, Saws, All Things, Affected

Since love of God is the highest felicity and happiness of man, his final end and the aim of all his actions, it follows that he alone observes the divine law who is concerned to love God not from fear of punishment nor love of something else, such as pleasure, fame, ect., but from the single fact that he knows God, or that he knows that the knowledge and love of God is the highest good

Topics: Men, Law, And Love, Divine Law

The real disturbers of the peace are those who, in a free state, seek to curtail the liberty of judgment which they are unable to tyrannize over.

source: - "Theological-Political Treatise". Book by Baruch Spinoza, Ch. 20, That In a Free State Every Man May Think What He Likes, and Say What He Thinks, 1670.

Topics: Real, Liberty, Judgment, Free State

If facts conflict with a theory, either the theory must be changed or the facts.

Topics: Facts, Conflict, Theory

Laws which can be broken without any wrong to one's neighbor are a laughing-stock; and such laws, instead of restraining the appetites and lusts of mankind, serve rather to heighten them. Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata [we always resist prohibitions, and yearn for what is denied us].

Topics: Law, Broken, Laughing

self-preservation is the primary and only foundation of virtue.

Topics: Self, Foundation, Virtue, Self Preservation

Everyone has as much right as he has might.

Topics: Might

The terms good and bad 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 one with 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 is neither good nor bad.

source: - Baruch Spinoza “Ethics”, Lulu.com

Topics: Gratitude, Thinking, Quality

The more intelligible a thing is, the more easily it is retained in the memory, and counterwise, the less intelligible it is, the more easily we forget it.

Topics: Memories, Forget, Forget It

Whatsoever is, is in God.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (2015). “Ethics”, p.22, Baruch Spinoza

All is One (Nature, God)

Desire is the essence of a man.

Topics: Men, Essence, Desire

God is a thing that thinks.

Topics: Thinking

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.

Topics: Mind, Perceive, Feigning

If we love something similar to ourselves, we endeavor, as far as we can, to bring it about that it should love us in return.

source: - "The Essential Spinoza: Ethics and Related Writings".

Topics: Life, Return, Should

We strive to further the occurrence of whatever we imagine will lead to Joy, and to avert or destroy what we imagine is contrary to it, or will lead to Sadness.

Topics: Communication, Sadness, Joy, Avert

For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from force of character: for obedience is the constant will to execute what, by the general decree of the commonwealth, ought to be done.

source: - "Tractatus Politicus (TP)". Political paper by Baruch Spinoza, 1677.

Topics: Wisdom, Peace, War, International Peace, Achieving Peace

Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.

Topics: Peace, War, Philosophical, Strength Of Character

The greatest pride, or the greatest despondency, is the greatest ignorance of one's self.

Topics: Ignorance, Pride, Self, Despondency

In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (2014). “Letters to Friend and Foe”, p.70, Open Road Media

Topics: Practical Life, Practicals, Compelled

Laws directed against opinions affect the generous-minded rather than the wicked, and are adapted less for coercing criminals than for irritating the upright.

Topics: Law, Wicked, Criminals

Human infirmity in moderating and checking the emotions I name bondage : for, when a man is a prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune : so much so, that he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (1981). “Ethics”, p.163, Commodius Vicus

Topics: Lying, Men, Names, Compelled, Infirmity

Speculation, like nature, abhors a vacuum.

Topics: Vacuums, Speculation

Nothing in the universe is contingent, but all things are conditioned to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of the divine nature.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (1981). “Ethics”, p.33, Commodius Vicus

Topics: Divine, Particular, All Things, Divine Nature

Men are mistaken in thinking themselves free; their opinion is made up of consciousness of their own actions, and ignorance of the causes by which they are determined.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (1981). “Ethics”, p.70, Commodius Vicus

Topics: Ignorance, Men, Thinking

I do not believe anyone has reached such perfection, surpassing all others, except Christ, to whom God immediately revealed - without words or visions - the conditions which lead to salvation.

source: - "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus". Book by Baruch Spinoza, Chapter 1, 1670.

Topics: Believe, Perfection, Vision, Surpassing

Schisms do not originate in a love of truth, which is a source of courtesy and gentleness, but rather in an inordinate desire for supremacy.

source: - "The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza" by Benedict de Spinoza, ch. 20, 1670.

Topics: Desire, Courtesy, Schism

Nothing exists from whose nature some effect does not follow.

source: - "Ethics". Part I: Concerning God, Prop. 36, 1677.

Topics: Doe, Influence, Effects

Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.

Topics: Nature, Freedom, Animal

I call him free who is led solely by reason.

Topics: Religion, Atheism, Reason, Atheistic

Only free men are thoroughly grateful one to another.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (1981). “Ethics”, p.221, Commodius Vicus

Topics: Grateful, Men, Free Man

He who seeks to regulate everything by law is more likely to arouse vices than to reform them. It is best to grant what cannot be abolished, even though it be in itself harmful. How many evils spring from luxury, envy, avarice, drunkenness and the like, yet these are tolerated because they cannot be prevented by legal enactments.

Topics: Spring, Law, Luxury

A miracle signifies nothing more than an event... the cause of which cannot be explained by another familiar instance, or.... which the narrator is unable to explain.

Topics: Miracle, Causes, Narrators

Nature offers nothing that can be called this man's rather than another's; but under nature everything belongs to all.

source: - "Tractatus Politicus (TP)". Political paper by Baruch Spinoza, 1677.

Topics: Men, Offers

In the state of nature, wrong-doing is impossible ; or, if anyone does wrong, it is to himself, not to another.

source: - "Political Treatise" by Baruch Spinoza, translated by A. H. Gosset, (Ch. 2), 1883.

Topics: Doe, Impossible, States

The things which ... are esteemed as the greatest good of all ... can be reduced to these three headings, to wit : Riches, Fame, and Pleasure. With these three the mind is so engrossed that it cannot scarcely think of any other good.

source: - "On the Improvement of the Understanding". Book by Baruch Spinoza, 1662.

Topics: Thinking, Mind, Three

If anyone conceives that he is loved by another, and believes that he has given no cause for such love, he will love that other in return.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (1981). “Ethics”, p.128, Commodius Vicus

Topics: Life, Believe, Return

Men are especially intolerant of serving and being ruled by, their equals.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (2017). “A Theologico-Political Treatise”, p.49, Jovian Press

Topics: Men, Serving

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.

Topics: Order, Anxiety, Honor, Inconsistent

A free man, who lives among ignorant people, tries as much as he can to refuse their benefits. .. He who lives under the guidance of reason endeavours as much as possible to repay his fellow's hatred, rage, contempt, etc. with love and nobleness.

Topics: Men, People, Hatred, Free Man, Ignorant People

The mind has greater power over the emotions, and is less subject thereto, insofar as it understands all things to be necessary.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (2014). “The Road to Inner Freedom: The Ethics”, p.73, Open Road Media

Topics: Mind, Emotion, Subjects, Greater Power

If slavery, barbarism and desolation are to be called peace, men can have no worse misfortune.

source: - "Political Treatise" by Baruch Spinoza, translated by A. H. Gosset, (Ch. 6), 1883.

Topics: Men, Slavery, Desolation

One and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent, e.g., music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf.

Topics: Melancholy, Deaf, Realism

Faith is nothing but obedience and piety.

Topics: Obedience, Piety

Of all the things that are beyond my power, I value nothing more highly than to be allowed the honor of entering into bonds of friendship with people who sincerely love truth. For, of things beyond our power, I believe there is nothing in the world which we can love with tranquility except such men.

Topics: Believe, Men, People, Truth Love, Bonds Of Friendship

Statesman are suspected of plotting against mankind, rather than consulting their interests, and are esteemed more crafty than learned.

Topics: Mankind, Interest, Consulting

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.

Topics: Beauty, Beautiful, Nature, Deformity

Reality and perfection are synonymous.

Topics: Reality, Perfection

God and all attributes of God are eternal.

source: - "Ethics". Book by Baruch Spinoza, Prop. 19, 1677.

Topics: God, Attributes, Attributes Of God

In so far as men are influenced by envy or any kind of hatred, one towards another, they are at variance, and are therefore to be feared in proportion, as they are more powerful than their fellows. Yet minds are not conquered by force, but by love and high-mindedness.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (1981). “Ethics”, p.226, Commodius Vicus

Topics: Life, Powerful, Men

Those who wish to seek out the cause of miracles and to understand the things of nature as philosophers, and not to stare at them in astonishment like fools, are soon considered heretical and impious, and proclaimed as such by those whom the mob adores as the interpreters of nature and the gods.

source: - "The Bold Truth" by Lazima Tutashinda, (p. 266), January 1, 1997.

Topics: Taken, Ignorance, Mean

True piety for the universe but no time for religions made for man's convenience.

Topics: Men, Made, Convenience

The virtue of a free man appears equally great in refusing to face difficulties as in overcoming them.

Topics: Men, Overcoming, Faces

Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men.

Topics: Men, Fancy, Fame, Drawbacks

Love is pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause, and hatred pain accompanied by the idea of an external cause.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (2014). “The Road to Inner Freedom: The Ethics”, p.22, Open Road Media

Topics: Pain, Love Is, Ideas

Man can, indeed, act contrarily to the decrees of God, as far as they have been written like laws in the minds of ourselves or the prophets, but against that eternal decree of God, which is written in universal nature, and has regard to the course of nature as a whole, he can do nothing.

source: - "Tractatus Politicus (TP)". Political paper by Baruch Spinoza, 1677.

Topics: Men, Law, Mind

To comprehend an idea, a person must simultaneously accept it as true. Conscious analysis - which, depending on the idea, may occur almost immediately or with considerable effort - allows the mind to reject what it intially accepted as fact.

Topics: Ideas, Effort, Mind

Desire is the very essence of man

source: - Baruch Spinoza (2006). “The Essential Spinoza: Ethics and Related Writings”, p.93, Hackett Publishing

Topics: Philosophy, Men, Essence

All laws which can be broken without any injury to another, are counted but a laughing-stock, and are so far from bridling the desires and lusts of men, that on the contrary they stimulate them.

source: - "Tractatus Politicus (TP)". Political paper by Baruch Spinoza, 1677.

Topics: Men, Law, Broken

The mind can only imagine anything, or remember what is past, while the body endures.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (2015). “Ethics”, p.418, Baruch Spinoza

Topics: Past, Mind, Body

Yet nature cannot be contravened, but preserves a fixed and immutable order.

Topics: Order, Fixed, Preserves

He that can carp in the most eloquent or acute manner at the weakness of the human mind is held by his fellows as almost divine.

source: - "Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrat" by Baruch Spinoza, part III: "On the Origin and Nature of the Emotions", 1677.

Topics: Mind, Weakness, Ethics, Carp

Love is nothing but joy accompanied with the idea of an eternal cause.

Topics: Love, Ideas, Joy

Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.

Topics: Suffering, Emotion, Form, Mans Search For Meaning

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.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (2014). “The Road to Inner Freedom: The Ethics”, p.27, Open Road Media

Topics: Life, Hatred, Acting

The more we understand individual things, the more we understand God.

Topics: Faith, Individuality, Religion

According as each has been educated, so he repents of or glories in his actions.

Topics: Action, Glory, Educated

The multitude always strains after rarities and exceptions, and thinks little of the gifts of nature; so that, when prophecy is talked of, ordinary knowledge is not supposed to be included. Nevertheless it has as much right as any other to be called Divine.

source: - "Theological-Political Treatise". Book by Baruch Spinoza, Ch. 1, Of Prophecy, 1670.

Topics: Thinking, Littles, Ordinary, Rarity

The proper study of a wise man is not how to die but how to live.

Topics: Wise, Men, Atheism

In proportion as we endeavor to live according to the guidance of reason, shall we strive as much as possible to depend less on hope, to liberate ourselves from fear, to rule fortune, and to direct our actions by the sure counsels of reason.

Topics: Our Actions, Guidance, Reason

.... we are a part of nature as a whole, whose order we follow.

Topics: Order, Words Of Wisdom, Pantheism

Anyone who seeks for the true causes of miracles, and strives to understand natural phenomena as an intelligent being, and not to gaze at them like a fool, is set down and denounced as an impious heretic.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (2015). “Ethics”, p.63, Baruch Spinoza

Topics: Intelligent, Miracle, Atheism

The more a government strives to curtail freedom of speech, the more obstinately is it resisted; not indeed by the avaricious, ... but by those whom good education, sound morality, and virtue have rendered more free.

source: - "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus" by Baruch Spinoza, (Ch. 20), 1677.

Topics: Government, Freedom Of Speech, Sound

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.

Topics: Common, Sin, Natural

As though God had turned away from the wise, and written his decrees, not in the mind of man but in the entrails of beasts, or left them to be proclaimed by the inspiration and instinct of fools, madmen, and birds. Such is the unreason to which terror can drive mankind!

source: - "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus". Book by Baruch Spinoza, Preface, 1677.

Topics: Wise, Inspiration, Men

Ceremonies are no aid to blessedness.

Topics: Aids, Ceremony, Blessedness

Whatever increases, decreases, limits or extends the body's power of action, increases decreases, limits, or extends the mind's power of action. And whatever increases, decreases, limits, or extends the mind's power of action, also increases, decreases, limits, or extends the body's power of action.

Topics: Mind, Body, Limits

He who hates anyone will endeavor to do him an injury, unless he fears that a greater injury will thereby accrue to himself; on the other hand, he who loves anyone will, by the same law, seek to benefit him.

source: - Baruch Spinoza (2014). “The Road to Inner Freedom: The Ethics”, p.24, Open Road Media

Topics: Life, Hate, Hands