30 Reasonable Baruch Spinoza Quotes

Happiness or unhappiness is made wholly to depend on the quality of the object which we love.On the Improvement of the Understanding (1662)

Freedom is absolutely necessary for progress in science and the liberal arts.'Chapter XX. That in a Free State Every Man May Think What He Likes, and Say What He Thinks,' A Theologico-Political Treatise (1670)

Men can govern anything more easily than their tongues, and restrain anything more easily than their appetites.'Part III, Proposition II,' Ethics (1677)

He who seeks equality between unequals, seeks an absurdity.'Chapter IX. Of Aristocracy. Continuation,' Political Treatise (1677)

All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.'Part V, Proposition XLII, Scholium,' Ethics (1677)

God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things.'Part I, Proposition XVIII,' Ethics (1677)

Pride is pleasure arising from a man’s overestimation of himself.'Part IV, Proposition LVII,' Ethics (1677)

Desire is the essence of a man.'Part IV, Proposition XVIII, Proof,' Ethics (1677)

Self-complacency is pleasure accompanied by the idea of one’s self as cause.'Part III, Proposition LI,' Ethics (1677)

The greatest pride, or the greatest despondency, is the greatest ignorance of one’s self.'Part III, Proposition LV,' Ethics (1677) (1883)

None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.'Part IV, Appendix,' Ethics (1677)

True virtue is nothing else but living in accordance with reason.'Part IV, Proposition XXXVII,' Ethics (1677)

If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.'Part IV, Proposition LXVIII,' Ethics (1677)

Whatsoever is contrary to nature is also contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.'Chapter VI. Of Miracles,' A Theologico-Political Treatise (1670)

The world would be much happier, if men were as fully able to keep silence as they are to speak.'Part III, Proposition II,' Ethics (1677)

Those who are believed to be most self-abased and humble, are generally in reality the most ambitious and envious.'Part III, Proposition XXIX, Explanation,' Ethics (1677)

To give aid to every poor man is far beyond the power and the advantage of any private person. For the riches of any private person are wholly inadequate to meet such a call.'Part IV, Appendix XVII,' Ethics (1677)

I do not know the limits, within which the freedom of my philosophical teaching would be confined, if I am to avoid all appearance of disturbing the publicly established religion.Letter to Fabritius (The Hague, March 30, 1673)

Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself.'Part V, Proposition LXII,' Ethics (1677)

Peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from force of character.'Chapter V. Of the Best State of a Dominion,' Political Treatise (1677)

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.'Part IV, Preface,' Ethics (1677)

To indulge ourselves with pleasures only in so far as they are necessary for preserving health.On the Improvement of the Understanding (1662)

The idea, which constitutes the actual being of the human mind, is not simple, but compounded of a great number of ideas.'Part II, Postulates, Proposition XV,' Ethics (1677)

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.'Part IV, Proposition LXII, Note,' Ethics (1677)

There can be no hope without fear, and no fear without hope.'Part III, Proposition XIII, Explanation,' Ethics (1677)

Whenever a man thinks something is beyond his capability, he necessarily thinks so, and by this belief he is so conditioned that he really cannot do what he thinks he cannot do. For while thinking that he cannot do this or that, he is not determined to do it, and consequently it is impossible that he should do it.'Part III, Explication,' Ethics (1677)

Ambition is the immoderate desire of power.'Part III, Proposition XLIV,' Ethics (1677)

Simply from the fact that we have regarded a thing with the emotion of pleasure or pain, though that thing be not the efficient cause of the emotion, we can either love or hate it.'Part III, Proposition XV, Corollary,' Ethics (1677)

Better for the right counsels of a dominion to be known to its enemies, than for the evil secrets of tyrants to be concealed from the citizens. They who can treat secretly of the affairs of a dominion 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.'Chapter VII. Of Monarchy (Continuation),' Political Treatise (1677)

He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason.'Chapter XVI. Of the Foundations of a State, of the Natural and Civil Rights of Individuals, and of the Rights of the Sovereign Power,' A Theologico-Political Treatise (1670)

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.No source

If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.No source

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.No source

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.No source