Baruch Spinoza Quotes - Page 2

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

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

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

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

Happiness is a virtue, not its reward.

Let unswerving integrity be your watchword.

Freedom is self-determination.

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

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.

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.

[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.

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

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.

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

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

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

Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare.

We feel and know that we are eternal.