-
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.
Baruch Spinoza -
Ceremonies are no aid to blessedness.
Baruch Spinoza
-
Hatred is increased by being reciprocated, and can on the other hand be destroyed by love.
Baruch Spinoza -
Reality and perfection are synonymous.
Baruch Spinoza -
Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak.
Baruch Spinoza -
Men will find that they can ... avoid far more easily the perils which beset them on all sides by united action.
Baruch Spinoza -
In the state of nature, wrong-doing is impossible ; or, if anyone does wrong, it is to himself, not to another.
Baruch Spinoza -
Freedom is self-determination.
Baruch Spinoza
-
To understand something is to be delivered of it.
Baruch Spinoza -
No matter how thin you slice it, there will always be two sides.
Baruch Spinoza -
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.
Baruch Spinoza -
In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth.
Baruch Spinoza -
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.
Baruch Spinoza -
According as each has been educated, so he repents of or glories in his actions.
Baruch Spinoza
-
Measure, time and number are nothing but modes of thought or rather of imagination.
Baruch Spinoza -
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].
Baruch Spinoza -
Let unswerving integrity be your watchword.
Baruch Spinoza -
Men who are ruled by reason desire nothing for themselves which they would not wish for all mankind.
Baruch Spinoza -
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.
Baruch Spinoza -
Hatred which is completely vanquished by love passes into love: and love is thereupon greater than if hatred had not preceded it.
Baruch Spinoza
-
He who has a true idea, knows at that same time that he has a true idea, nor can he doubt concerning the truth of the thing.
Baruch Spinoza -
If anyone conceives, that an object of his love joins itself to another with closer bonds of friendship than he himself has attained to, he will be affected with hatred towards the loved object and with envy towards his rival.
Baruch Spinoza -
The most tyrannical of governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts.
Baruch Spinoza -
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.
Baruch Spinoza