Quotes from Baruch Spinoza

Reason is no match for passion.

A free man thinks of death least of all things, and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life.

I call him free who is led solely by reason.

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

self-preservation is the primary and only foundation of virtue.

Nothing forbids man to enjoy himself, save grim and gloomy superstition

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

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.

The superstitious, who know how to reprove vices rather than how to teach virtues, and who strive, not to lead people by reason, but to restrain them by fear in such a way that they flee what is bad rather than love the virtues, simply intend all other people to be as miserable as they are, and so it is not surprising that they are for the most part irksome and hateful to human beings.

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

I saw that all the things I feared and which feared me had nothing good or bad in them save in so far as the mind was affected by them.

We feel and know that we are eternal.

Will and intellect are one and the same thing.

Non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere.

By reality and perfection I mean the same thing.

Things are not more or less perfect, according as they delight or offend human senses, or according as they are serviceable or repugnant to mankind.

The purpose of the state is really freedom.

I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.

The more you struggle to live, the less you live. Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing. Instead, surrender to what is real within you, for that alone is sure.

He who has a true idea simultaneously knows that he has a true idea, and cannot doubt of the truth of the thing perceived.

Every person should embrace those [dogmas] that he, being the best judge of himself, feels will do most to strengthen in him love of justice.

Things which are accidentally the causes either of hope or fear are called good or evil omens.

I have laboured carefully, not to mock, lament, or execrate human actions, but to understand them.

Reason cannot defeat emotion, an emotion can only be displaced or overcome by a stronger emotion.