Baruch Spinoza Quotes
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Many errors, of a truth, consist merely in the application of the wrong names of things. For if a man says that the lines which are drawn from the centre of the circle to the circumference are not equal, he understands by the circle, at all events for the time, something else than mathematicians understand by it.
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I have tried sedulously not to laugh at the acts of man, nor to lament them, nor to detest them, but to understand them.
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True knowledge of good and evil as we possess is merely abstract or general, and the judgment which we pass on the order of things and the connection of causes, with a view to determining what is good or bad for us in the present, is rather imaginary than real.
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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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For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from force of character: for obedience is the constant will to execute what, by the general decree of the commonwealth, ought to be done.
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In the mind there is no absolute or free will.
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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.
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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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There is no fear without some hope, and no hope without some fear.
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The virtue of a free man appears equally great in refusing to face difficulties as in overcoming them.
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I do not believe anyone has reached such perfection, surpassing all others, except Christ, to whom God immediately revealed - without words or visions - the conditions which lead to salvation.
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The more you struggle to live, the less you live. Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing. Instead, surrender to what is real within you, for that alone is sure....you are above everything distressing.
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Everyone has as much right as he has might.
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A man is as much affected pleasurably or painfully by the image of a thing past or future as by the image of a thing present.
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.... we are a part of nature as a whole, whose order we follow.
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He who regulates everything by laws, is more likely to arouse vices than reform them.
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. . . to know the order of nature, and regard the universe as orderly is the highest function of the mind.
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He whose honor depends on the opinion of the mob must day by day strive with the greatest anxiety, act and scheme in order to retain his reputation. For the mob is varied and inconsistent, and therefore if a reputation is not carefully preserved it dies quickly.
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Only free men are thoroughly grateful one to another.
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Nature has no goal in view, and final causes are only human imaginings.
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Nothing in nature is by chance... Something appears to be chance only because of our lack of knowledge.
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Nature offers nothing that can be called this man's rather than another's; but under nature everything belongs to all.
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If facts conflict with a theory, either the theory must be changed or the facts.
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All is One (Nature, God).