Baruch Spinoza

This I know, that between finite and infinite there is no comparison; so that the difference between God and the greatest and most excellent created thing is no less than the difference between God and the least created thing.

— Baruch Spinoza

If I had as clear an idea of ghosts, as I have of a triangle or a circle, I should not in the least hesitate to affirm that they had been created by God; but as the idea I possess of them is just like the ideas, which my imagination forms of harpies, gryphons, hydras, &c., I cannot consider them as anything but dreams, which differ from God as totally as that which is not differs from that which is.

— Baruch Spinoza

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

— 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

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 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

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

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

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 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

If slavery, barbarism and desolation are to be called peace, men can have no worse misfortune. No doubt there are usually more and sharper quarrels between parents and children, than between masters and slaves ; yet it advances not the art of household management to change a father's right into a right of property, and count children but as slaves. Slavery, then, and not peace, is furthered by handing the whole authority to one man.

— Baruch Spinoza

He who seeks equality between unequals seeks an absurdity.

— Baruch Spinoza

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

— 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

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

— Baruch Spinoza

We can conceive of various kinds of democracy. But my intention is not to treat of every kind, but of that only, "wherein all, without exception, who owe allegiance to the laws of the country only, and are further independent and of respectable life, have the right of voting in the supreme council and of filling the offices of the dominion."

— Baruch Spinoza

Happiness is a virtue, not its reward.

— 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

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

— Baruch Spinoza

I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused.

— 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

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

— Baruch Spinoza

He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason.

— Baruch Spinoza

There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.

— Baruch Spinoza

Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.

— Baruch Spinoza

Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.

— 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

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

— Baruch Spinoza

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

— Baruch Spinoza

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

— Baruch Spinoza

The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.

— Baruch Spinoza

I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused.

— Baruch Spinoza

Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.

— Baruch Spinoza

There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.

— Baruch Spinoza

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

— Baruch Spinoza

Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.

— Baruch Spinoza