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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.
Baruch Spinoza -
Everything great is just as difficult to realize as it is rare to find.
Baruch Spinoza -
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.
Baruch Spinoza -
God is not He who is, but That which is.
Baruch Spinoza -
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.
Baruch Spinoza -
I pass, at length, to the third and perfectly absolute dominion, which we call democracy.
Baruch Spinoza
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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.
Baruch Spinoza -
Superstition, then, is engendered, preserved, and fostered by fear.
Baruch Spinoza -
What Paul says about Peter tells us more about Paul than about Peter.
Baruch Spinoza -
The highest endeavor of the mind, and the highest virtue, it to understand things by intuition.
Baruch Spinoza -
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.'
Baruch Spinoza -
It is not possible that we should remember that we existed before our body, for our can bear no trace of such existence, neither can eternity be defined in terms of time or have any relation to time. But notwithstanding, we feel and know that we are eternal.
Baruch Spinoza
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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.
Baruch Spinoza -
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.
Baruch Spinoza -
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.
Baruch Spinoza -
Sed amor erga rem aeternam et infinitam sola laetitia pascit animum, ipsaque omnis tristitiae est expers; quod valde est desiderandum totisque viribus quaerendum.
Baruch Spinoza -
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.
Baruch Spinoza -
No to laugh, not to lament, not to detest, but to understand.
Baruch Spinoza
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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 menб 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.
Baruch Spinoza -
Faith is nothing but obedience and piety.
Baruch Spinoza -
Minds are not conquered by force, but by love and high-mindedness.
Baruch Spinoza -
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.
Baruch Spinoza