Baruch Spinoza Quotes

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Faith is nothing but obedience and piety.

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.

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

Let unswerving integrity be your watchword.

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

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.

Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.

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

All is One (Nature, God)

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

Whatsoever is, is in God.

Reality and perfection are synonymous.

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

Ambition is the immoderate desire for honor.

God and all attributes of God are eternal.

If slavery, barbarism and desolation are to be called peace, men can have no worse misfortune.

So long as a man imagines that he cannot do this or that, so long as he is determined not to do it; and consequently so long as it is impossible to him that he should do it.

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 a part of nature as a whole, whose order we follow.

Happiness is a virtue, not its reward.

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.

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

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

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

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

All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.

Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare.

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

In the mind there is no absolute or free will.

I have tried sedulously not to laugh at the acts of man, nor to lament them, nor to detest them, but to understand them.

The less the mind understands and the more things it perceives, the greater its power of feigning is; and the more things it understands, the more that power is diminished.

Measure, time and number are nothing but modes of thought or rather of imagination.

A miracle signifies nothing more than an event... the cause of which cannot be explained by another familiar instance, or.... which the narrator is unable to explain.

Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak.