Quotes from Baruch Spinoza

Things could not have been brought into being by God in any manner or in any order different from that which has in fact obtained.

whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived

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

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

What everyone wants from life is continuous and genuine happiness.

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

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

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

All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.

Self-complacency is pleasure accompanied by the idea of oneself as cause.

I make this chief distinction between religion and superstition, that the latter is founded on ignorance, the former on knowledge.

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

I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.

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

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

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.

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

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

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

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

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

We feel and know that we are eternal.

Nothing exists from whose nature some effect does not follow.

The greater emotion with which we conceive a loved object to be affected toward us, the greater will be our complacency.