Baruch spinoza quotes

Whatsoever is, is in God.

To understand something is to be delivered of it.

Men who are ruled by reason desire nothing for themselves which they would not wish for all mankind.

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.

Freedom is self-determination.

We feel and know that we are eternal.

Hatred is increased by being reciprocated, and can on the other hand be destroyed by love.

In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth.

I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.

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.

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.

Those who know the true use of money, and regulate the measure of wealth according to their needs, live contented with few things.

Indulge yourself in pleasures only in so far as they are necessary for the preservation of health.

Nothing in nature is by chance... Something appears to be chance only because of our lack of knowledge.

A good thing which prevents us from enjoying a greater good is in truth an evil.

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.

Will and intellect are one and the same thing.

Everyone has as much right as he has might.

He who regulates everything by laws, is more likely to arouse vices than reform them.

Reason connot defeat emotion, an emotion can only be displaced or overcome by a stronger emotion.

A free man thinks of nothing less than of death; and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life.

If facts conflict with a theory, either the theory must be changed or the facts.

No to laugh, not to lament, not to detest, but to understand.

Let unswerving integrity be your watchword.

Happiness is not the reward of virtue, but is virtue itself; nor do we delight in happiness because we restrain from our lusts; but on the contrary, because we delight in it, therefore we are able to restrain them.

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.

He who lives according to the guidance of reason strives as much as possible to repay the hatred, anger, or contempt of others towards himself with love or generosity. ...hatred is increased by reciprocal hatred, and, on the other hand, can be extinguished by love, so that hatred passes into love.

No matter how thin you slice it, there will always be two sides.

What Paul says about Peter tells us more about Paul than about Peter.

I call him free who is led solely by reason.

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 joyfully

Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.

The supreme mystery of despotism, its prop and stay, is to keep men in a state of deception, and with the specious title of religion to cloak the fear by which they must be held in check, so that they will fight for their servitude as if for salvation.

All is One (Nature, God)

The greatest pride, or the greatest despondency, is the greatest ignorance of one's self.

The mind has greater power over the emotions, and is less subject thereto, insofar as it understands all things to be necessary.

It may easily come to pass that a vain man may become proud and imagine himself pleasing to all when he is in reality a universal nuisance.

I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.

Speculation, like nature, abhors a vacuum.

The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed along with the body, but something of it remains, which is eternal.

He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason.

The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.

It is usually the case with most men that their nature is so constituted that they pity those who fare badly and envy those who fare well.

God and all attributes of God are eternal.

Only free men are thoroughly grateful one to another.

All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.

The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.

When a man is prey to his emotions, he is not his own master.

If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.

Care of the poor is incumbent on society as a whole.

Nothing in the universe is contingent, but all things are conditioned to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of the divine nature.

Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.

Desire nothing for yourself, which you do not desire for others.

[Believers] are but triflers who, when they cannot explain a thing, run back to the will of God; this is, truly, a ridiculous way of expressing ignorance.

The terms good and bad indicate no positive quality in things regarded in themselves, but are merely modes of thinking or notions, which we form from the comparison of things one with another. Thus one and the same thing can be at the same time good, bad, and indifferent. For instance, music is good for him that is melancholy, bad for him that mourns; for him that is deaf; it is neither good nor bad.

Everything great is just as difficult to realize as it is rare to find.

I can control my passions and emotions if I can understand their nature

The more intelligible a thing is, the more easily it is retained in the memory, and counterwise, the less intelligible it is, the more easily we forget it.

Further conceive, I beg, that a stone, while continuing in motion, should be capable of thinking and knowing, that it is endeavoring, as far as it can, to continue to move. Such a stone, being conscious merely of its own endeavor and not at all indifferent, would believe itself to be completely free, and would think that it continued in motion solely because of its own wish. This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined.

Reality and perfection are synonymous.

The highest endeavor of the mind, and the highest virtue, it to understand things by intuition.

He, who knows how to distinguish between true and false, must have an adequate idea of true and false.

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].

I saw that all things I feared, and which feared me, had nothing good or bad in them save insofar as the mind was affected by them.

We are so constituted by Nature that we easily believe the things we hope for, but believe only with difficulty those we fear, and that we regard such things more or less highly than is just. This is the source of the superstitions by which men everywhere are troubled. For the rest, I don

In the mind there is no absolute or free will.

He who seeks equality between unequals seeks an absurdity.

Ambition is the immoderate desire for honor.

What everyone wants from life is continuous and genuine happiness.

Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.

Men believe themselves to be free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.

Nature is satisfied with little; and if she is, I am also.

Philosophy has no end in view save truth; faith looks for nothing but obedience and piety.

Everyone endeavors as much as possible to make others love what he loves, and to hate what he hates... This effort to make everyone approve what we love or hate is in truth ambition, and so we see that each person by nature desires that other persons should live according to his way of thinking.

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

Laws directed against opinions affect the generous-minded rather than the wicked, and are adapted less for coercing criminals than for irritating the upright.

None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.

God is not He who is, but That which is.

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.

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.

Sadness diminishes a man's powers

Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare.

God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things.

In the mind there is no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined to wish this or that by a cause, which has also been determined by another cause, and this last by another cause, and so on to infinity.

Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men's natural abilities as to restrain them.

. . . to know the order of nature, and regard the universe as orderly is the highest function of the mind.

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.

Nature offers nothing that can be called this man's rather than another's; but under nature everything belongs to all.

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.

The greatest good is the knowledge of the union which the mind has with the whole nature.

Laws which prescribe what everyone must believe, and forbid men to say or write anything against this or that opinion, are often passed to gratify, or rather to appease the anger of those who cannot abide independent minds.

Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak. But experience more than sufficiently teaches that men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues.

Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.

Freedom is absolutely necessary for the progress in science and the liberal arts.

In the state of nature, wrong-doing is impossible ; or, if anyone does wrong, it is to himself, not to another.

Faith is nothing but obedience and piety.

Blessed are the weak who think that they are good because they have no claws.

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

True piety for the universe but no time for religions made for man's convenience.

I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused.

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

Desire is the essence of a man.

Statesman are suspected of plotting against mankind, rather than consulting their interests, and are esteemed more crafty than learned.

Happiness is a virtue, not its reward.

The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.

Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.

The eternal wisdom of God ... has shown itself forth in all things, but chiefly in the mind of man, and most of all in Jesus Christ.

Pride is pleasure arising from a man's thinking too highly of himself.

Superstition, then, is engendered, preserved, and fostered by fear.

Minds are not conquered by force, but by love and high-mindedness.

Men are especially intolerant of serving and being ruled by, their equals.

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.

Nature has no goal in view, and final causes are only human imaginings.

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.

Pride is over-estimation of oneself by reason of self-love.

Big fish eat small fish with as much right as they have power.

If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.

The most tyrannical of governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts.

All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.

Of all the things that are beyond my power, I value nothing more highly than to be allowed the honor of entering into bonds of friendship with people who sincerely love truth. For, of things beyond our power, I believe there is nothing in the world which we can love with tranquility except such men.

One and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent, e.g., music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf.

He who loves God cannot endeavor that God should love him in return.

The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things.

The greatest secret of monarchic rule...is to keep men deceived and to cloak in the specious name of religion the fear by which they must be checked, so that they will fight for slavery as they would for salvation, and will think it not shameful, but a most honorable achievement, to give their life and blood that one man may have a ground for boasting.

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.