Baruch Spinoza - Nature Quotes

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That eternal and infinite being we call God, or Nature [Deus sive Natura], acts from the same necessity from which he exists.

Baruch Spinoza

Nothing exists from whose nature some effect does not follow.

Baruch Spinoza

Now it is evident, from the definition above given, that prophecy really includes ordinary knowledge; for the knowledge which we acquire by our natural faculties depends on our knowledge of God and his eternal laws; but ordinary knowledge is common to all men as men, and rests on foundations which all share, whereas the multitude always strains after rarities and exceptions, and thinks little of the gifts of nature ; so that, when prophecy is talked of, ordinary knowledge is not supposed to be included.

Baruch Spinoza

In the state of nature, wrong-doing is impossible ; or, if anyone does wrong, it is to himself, not to another. For no one by the law of nature is bound to please another, unless he chooses, nor to hold anything to be good or evil, but what he himself, according to his own temperament, pronounces to be so ; and, to speak generally, nothing is forbidden by the law of nature, except what is beyond everyone's power.

Baruch Spinoza

Nature is satisfied with little; and if she is, I am also.

Baruch Spinoza

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.

Baruch Spinoza

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

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

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

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

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

Baruch Spinoza

The doctrines added by certain churches, such as that God took upon himself human nature, I have expressly said that I do not understand; in fact, to speak the truth, they seem to me no less absurd than would a statement, that a circle had taken upon itself the nature of a square.

Baruch Spinoza

Nature offers nothing that can be called this man's rather than another's ; but, under nature, everything belongs to all — that is, they have authority to claim it for themselves. But, under dominion, where it is by common law determined what belongs to this man, and what to that, he is called just who has a constant will to render to every man his own, but he, unjust who strives, on the contrary, to make his own that which belongs to another.

Baruch Spinoza

Nature has set no end before herself, and... all final causes are nothing but human fictions.

Baruch Spinoza

I understand that to be CAUSE OF ITSELF (causa sui) whose essence involves existence and whose nature cannot be conceived unless existing.

Baruch Spinoza