Baruch Spinoza - Mind Quotes

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

Baruch Spinoza
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
The mind can only imagine anything, or remember what is past, while the body endures.

Baruch Spinoza
The idea, which constitutes the actual being of the human mind, is not simple, but compounded of a great number of ideas.

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

Baruch Spinoza
The mind has greater power over the emotions, and is less subject thereto, insofar as it understands all things to be necessary.

Baruch Spinoza
The highest endeavor of the mind, and the highest virtue, it to understand things by intuition.

Baruch Spinoza
In the mind there is no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined to wish this or that by a cause, which has also been determined by another cause, and this last by another cause, and so on to infinity.

Baruch Spinoza
But love for an object eternal and infinite feeds the mind with joy alone, and a joy which is free from all sorrow. This is something greatly to be desired and to be sought with all our strength.

Baruch Spinoza
He that can carp in the most eloquent or acute manner at the weakness of the human mind is held by his fellows as almost divine.

Baruch Spinoza
It therefore comes to pass that everyone is fond of relating his own exploits and displaying the strength both of his body and his mind, and that men are on this account a nuisance one to the other.

Baruch Spinoza
The things which... are esteemed as the greatest good of all... can be reduced to these three headings: to wit, Riches, Fame, and Pleasure. With these three the mind is so engrossed that it cannot scarcely think of any other good.

Baruch Spinoza
I do not think it necessary for salvation to know Christ according to the flesh : but with regard to the Eternal Son of God, that is the Eternal Wisdom of God, which has manifested itself in all things and especially in the human mind, and above all in Christ Jesus, the case is far otherwise.

Baruch Spinoza