Baruch Spinoza Quotes
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Whatsoever is, is in God.
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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.
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I do not presume that I have found the best philosophy, I know that I understand the true philosophy.
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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.
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Men believe themselves to be free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.
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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.
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For no one by the law of nature is bound to please another, unless he chooses, nor to hold anything to be good or evil, but what he himself, according to his own temperament, pronounces to be so; and, to speak generally, nothing is forbidden by the law of nature, except what is beyond everyone's power.
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In so far as the mind sees things in their eternal aspect, it participates in eternity.
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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.
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The mind has greater power over the emotions, and is less subject thereto, insofar as it understands all things to be necessary.
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Ambition is the immoderate desire for honor.
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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.
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A good thing which prevents us from enjoying a greater good is in truth an evil.
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Desire nothing for yourself, which you do not desire for others.
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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.
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I shall consider human actions and desires in exactly the same manner, as though I were concerned with lines, planes and solids.
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He who loves God cannot endeavor that God should love him in return.
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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 joyfullyHe 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.
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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.
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There is no fear without some hope, and no hope without some fear.
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Blessed are the weak who think that they are good because they have no claws.
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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.
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A free man thinks of nothing less than of death; and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life.
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Laws directed against opinions affect the generous-minded rather than the wicked, and are adapted less for coercing criminals than for irritating the upright.