Baruch Spinoza Quotes
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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.
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Faith is nothing but obedience and piety.
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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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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.
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I pass, at length, to the third and perfectly absolute dominion, which we call democracy.
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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.
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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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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.
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Minds are not conquered by force, but by love and high-mindedness.
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Everything in nature is a cause from which there flows some effect.
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Men are especially intolerant of serving and being ruled by, their equals.
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Hatred which is completely vanquished by love passes into love: and love is thereupon greater than if hatred had not preceded it.
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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.
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I can control my passions and emotions if I can understand their nature.
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God and all attributes of God are eternal.
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What everyone wants from life is continuous and genuine happiness.
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Let unswerving integrity be your watchword.
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Measure, time and number are nothing but modes of thought or rather of imagination.
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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.
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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.
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The greater emotion with which we conceive a loved object to be affected toward us, the greater will be our complacency.
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Everything great is just as difficult to realize as it is rare to find.
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He, who knows how to distinguish between true and false, must have an adequate idea of true and false.