Baruch Spinoza Quotes

106 Sourced Quotes

As men's habits of mind differ, so that some more readily embrace one form of faith, some another, for what moves one to pray may move another to scoff, I conclude … that everyone should be free to choose for himself the foundations of his creed, and that faith should be judged only by its fruits; each would then obey God freely with his whole heart, while nothing would be publicly honored save justice and charity.

Baruch Spinoza
My purpose is to explain, not the meaning of words, but the nature of things.

Baruch Spinoza
It may easily come to pass that a vain man may become proud and imagine himself pleasing to all when he is in reality a universal nuisance.

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

Baruch Spinoza
I refer those actions which work out the good of the agent to courage, and those which work out the good of others to nobility. Therefore temperance, sobriety, and presence of mind in danger, etc., are species of courage; but modesty, clemency, etc., are species of nobility.

Baruch Spinoza
I believe that a triangle, if it could speak, would say that God is eminently triangular, and a circle that the divine nature is eminently circular; and thus would every one ascribe his own attributes to God.

Baruch Spinoza
Peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from force of character.

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

Baruch Spinoza
If men's minds were as easily controlled as their tongues, every king would sit safely on his throne, and government by compulsion would cease; for every subject would shape his life according to the intentions of his rulers, and would esteem a thing true or false, good or evil, just or unjust, in obedience to their dictates.

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

Baruch Spinoza
I pass, at length, to the third and perfectly absolute dominion, which we call democracy.

Baruch Spinoza
I do not presume that I have found the best philosophy, I know that I understand the true philosophy.

Baruch Spinoza
A man would perish of hunger and thirst, if he refused to eat or drink, till he had obtained positive proof that food and drink would be good for him. But in philosophic reflection this is not so. On the contrary, we must take care not to admit as true anything, which is only probable. For when one falsity has been let in, infinite others follow.

Baruch Spinoza
Man can, indeed, act contrarily to the decrees of God, as far as they have been written like laws in the minds of ourselves or the prophets, but against that eternal decree of God, which is written in universal nature, and has regard to the course of nature as a whole, he can do nothing.

Baruch Spinoza
God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things.

Baruch Spinoza
The more a government strives to curtail freedom of speech, the more obstinately is it resisted; not indeed by the avaricious, … but by those whom good education, sound morality, and virtue have rendered more free.

Baruch Spinoza
I have resolved to demonstrate by a certain and undoubted course of argument, or to deduce from the very condition of human nature, not what is new and unheard of, but only such things as agree best with practice.

Baruch Spinoza
All laws which can be broken without any injury to another, are counted but a laughing-stock, and are so far from bridling the desires and lusts of men, that on the contrary they stimulate them.

Baruch Spinoza
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.

Baruch Spinoza
The safest way for a state is to lay down the rule that religion is comprised solely in the exercise of charity and justice, and that the rights of rulers in sacred, no less than in secular matters, should merely have to do with actions, but that every man should think what he likes and say what he thinks.

Baruch Spinoza
If anyone conceives, that an object of his love joins itself to another with closer bonds of friendship than he himself has attained to, he will be affected with hatred towards the loved object and with envy towards his rival.

Baruch Spinoza
The ordinary surroundings of life which are esteemed by men (as their actions testify) to be the highest good, may be classed under the three heads — Riches, Fame, and the Pleasures of Sense: with these three the mind is so absorbed that it has little power to reflect on any different good.

Baruch Spinoza
It is of the nature of Reason to perceive things under a certain species of eternity [sub specie aeternitatis].

Baruch Spinoza
Of all the things that are beyond my power, I value nothing more highly than to be allowed the honor of entering into bonds of friendship with people who sincerely love truth. For, of things beyond our power, I believe there is nothing in the world which we can love with tranquility except such men.

Baruch Spinoza
This endeavor to do a thing or leave it undone, solely in order to please men, we call ambition, especially when we so eagerly endeavor to please the vulgar, that we do or omit certain things to our own or another's hurt: in other cases it is generally called kindliness.

Baruch Spinoza
Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak. But experience more than sufficiently teaches that men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues.

Baruch Spinoza
All the better; they do not force me to do anything that I would not have done of my own accord if I did not dread scandal. But since they want it that way, I enter gladly on the path that is opened to me, with the consolation that my departure will be more innocent than was the exodus of the early Hebrews from Egypt.

Baruch Spinoza
The order and connection of the thought is identical to with the order and connection of the things.

Baruch Spinoza
The ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain, by fear, nor to exact obedience, but, contrariwise, to free every man from fear, that he may live in all possible security ; in other words, to strengthen his natural right to exist and work without injury to himself or others.

Baruch Spinoza
Human infirmity in moderating and checking the emotions I name bondage: for, when a man is a prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune: so much so, that he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse.

Baruch Spinoza