Baruch Spinoza Quotes
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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.
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We can conceive of various kinds of democracy. But my intention is not to treat of every kind, but of that only, 'wherein all, without exception, who owe allegiance to the laws of the country only, and are further independent and of respectable life, have the right of voting in the supreme council and of filling the offices of the dominion.'
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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.
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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.
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All the objects pursued by the multitude not only bring no remedy that tends to preserve our being, but even act as hinderances, causing the death not seldom of those who possess them, and always of those who are possessed by them.
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Meum institutum non est verborum significationem sed rerum naturam explicare
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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.
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He who seeks equality between unequals seeks an absurdity.
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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.
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This I know, that between finite and infinite there is no comparison; so that the difference between God and the greatest and most excellent created thing is no less than the difference between God and the least created thing.
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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.
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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.
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I have resolved to demonstrate by a certain and undoubted course of argument, or to deduce from the very condition of human nature, not what is new and unheard of, but only such things as agree best with practice.
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What Paul says about Peter tells us more about Paul than about Peter.
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Minds are not conquered by force, but by love and high-mindedness.
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The highest endeavor of the mind, and the highest virtue, it to understand things by intuition.
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Everything great is just as difficult to realize as it is rare to find.
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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.
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This endeavour to do a thing or leave it undone, solely in order to please men, we call ambition, especially when we so eagerly endeavour to please the vulgar, that we do or omit certain things to our own or another's hurt : in other cases it is generally called kindliness.
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Faith is nothing but obedience and piety.
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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.
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The idea, which constitutes the actual being of the human mind, is not simple, but compounded of a great number of ideas.
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He, who knows how to distinguish between true and false, must have an adequate idea of true and false.
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Superstition, then, is engendered, preserved, and fostered by fear.