Baruch Spinoza Quotes :
“The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.”
“Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.”
“All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.”
“The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.”
“I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of the peace.”
“He who loves God cannot endeavor that God should love him in return.”
“The greatest pride or the greatest despondency is the greatest ignorance of oneself.”
“Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.”
“Freedom is absolutely necessary for the progress in science and the liberal arts.”
“Reason and passion are two wings of the human spirit by which it soars to the truth.”
“The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.”
“The true aim of government is liberty.”
“Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.”
“He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason.”
“I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.”
“We feel and know that we are eternal.”
“The more clearly we understand the causes of human behavior, the more we can work towards a better world.”
“There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.”
“Desire is the essence of a man.”
“God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things.”
“Nothing in nature is random. A thing appears random only through the incompleteness of our knowledge.”
“Self-preservation is the first and only foundation of virtue.”
“Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself.”
“He who seeks to regulate everything by law is more likely to arouse vices than to reform them.”
“In nature there is nothing contingent; all things have been caused by the necessity of the divine nature to exist and produce an effect in a certain way.”
“The mind loves the unknown and hates the known.”
“True freedom is to possess what is necessary for our well-being.”
“If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.”
“To understand the universe, we must first understand ourselves.”
“God is the cause of everything, but everything has a natural cause.”
“To be conscious of our actions, thoughts, and desires is to be conscious of our being.”
“The free man thinks of death least of all things; and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life.”
“The perfection of things is defined by their nature.”
“To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”
“We must love God without expecting anything in return.”
“Virtue is nothing else than living in accordance with reason.”
“Nature abhors a vacuum.”
“One and the same thing can be at the same time good, bad, and indifferent.”
“To be able to live independently is the first step towards true freedom.”
“To act in accordance with reason is to act in accordance with the will of God.”
“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”
“The more we understand individual things, the more we understand God.”
“The more we love, the more we resemble God.”
“All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.”
“The ultimate aim of philosophy is to show the harmony between reason and emotion.”
“Only a free man is truly self-sufficient.”
“The knowledge of God is the highest good.”
“The good which everyone, who follows after virtue, desires for himself, he will also desire for other men.”
“The greatest good is the knowledge of the union which the mind has with the whole of nature.”
“No matter how thin you slice it, there will always be two sides.”
“He who has a true idea simultaneously knows that he has a true idea, and cannot doubt the truth of the thing perceived.”
“Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.”
“There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.”
“In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth.”
“The more clearly we understand our emotions, the more we can understand others.”
“To be conscious of one’s own being is to be conscious of God’s existence.”
“The essence of man consists in his mind, not in his body.”
“The mind can only imagine anything, or remember what is past, while the body endures.”
“The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.”
“True virtue is life under the direction of reason.”
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