Quotes from Baruch Spinoza

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

One and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent, e.g., music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf.

Freedom is absolutely necessary for the progress in science and the liberal arts.

Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.

Ambition is the immoderate desire for power.

For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.

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.

Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.

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

Desire is the essence of a man.

Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men.

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.

Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.

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 highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of the peace.

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

Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare.

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

Peace is not the absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition of benevolence, confidence, justice.

Do not weep. Do not wax indignant. Understand.

What Paul says about Peter tells us more about Paul than about Peter

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.

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