Baruch Spinoza
In regard to intellect and true virtue, every nation is on a par with the rest, and God has not in these respects chosen one people rather than another.Collection: People
All laws which can be violated without doing any one any injury are laughed at. Nay, so far are they from doing anything to control the desires and passions of menŠ± that, on the contrary, they direct and incite men's thoughts the more toward those very objects, for we always strive toward what is forbidden and desire the things we are not allowed to have. And men of leisure are never deficient in the ingenuity needed to enable them to outwit laws framed to regulate things which cannot be entirely forbidden... He who tries to determine everything by law will foment crime rather than lessen it.Collection: Passion
Things could not have been brought into being by God in any manner or in any order different from that which has in fact obtained.Collection: God
Whatever increases, decreases, limits or extends the body's power of action, increases decreases, limits, or extends the mind's power of action. And whatever increases, decreases, limits, or extends the mind's power of action, also increases, decreases, limits, or extends the body's power of action.Collection: Mind
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.Collection: Lying
True knowledge of good and evil as we possess is merely abstract or general, and the judgment which we pass on the order of things and the connection of causes, with a view to determining what is good or bad for us in the present, is rather imaginary than real.Collection: Gratitude
According as each has been educated, so he repents of or glories in his actions.Collection: Action
Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear. [They are the two sides of a coin, so learning how to manage fear through learning, understanding, rationality, controlled imagination, preparation, mental focus (including distraction) and a gratitude attitude is very helpful.]Collection: Gratitude
He who has a true idea, knows at that same time that he has a true idea, nor can he doubt concerning the truth of the thing.Collection: Ideas
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.Collection: Moving
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.Collection: Communication
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.Collection: Exercise
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.Collection: Men
Happiness is not the reward of virtue, but is virtue itself; nor do we delight in happiness because we restrain from our lusts; but on the contrary, because we delight in it, therefore we are able to restrain them.Collection: Lust
A free man thinks of nothing less than of death; and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life.Collection: Life
If facts conflict with a theory, either the theory must be changed or the facts.Collection: Facts
Laws which can be broken without any wrong to one's neighbor are a laughing-stock; and such laws, instead of restraining the appetites and lusts of mankind, serve rather to heighten them. Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata [we always resist prohibitions, and yearn for what is denied us].Collection: Law
Men are mistaken in thinking themselves free; their opinion is made up of consciousness of their own actions, and ignorance of the causes by which they are determined.Collection: Ignorance
We are so constituted by Nature that we easily believe the things we hope for, but believe only with difficulty those we fear, and that we regard such things more or less highly than is just. This is the source of the superstitions by which men everywhere are troubled. For the rest, I donCollection: Hope
The greatest secret of monarchic rule...is to keep men deceived and to cloak in the specious name of religion the fear by which they must be checked, so that they will fight for slavery as they would for salvation, and will think it not shameful, but a most honorable achievement, to give their life and blood that one man may have a ground for boasting.Collection: Fighting
He who lives according to the guidance of reason strives as much as possible to repay the hatred, anger, or contempt of others towards himself with love or generosity. ...hatred is increased by reciprocal hatred, and, on the other hand, can be extinguished by love, so that hatred passes into love.Collection: Life
In the state of nature, wrong-doing is impossible ; or, if anyone does wrong, it is to himself, not to another.Collection: Doe
The terms good and bad indicate no positive quality in things regarded in themselves, but are merely modes of thinking or notions, which we form from the comparison of things one with another. Thus one and the same thing can be at the same time good, bad, and indifferent. For instance, music is good for him that is melancholy, bad for him that mourns; for him that is deaf; it is neither good nor bad.Collection: Gratitude
Reality and perfection are synonymous.Collection: Reality
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.Collection: Men
For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from force of character: for obedience is the constant will to execute what, by the general decree of the commonwealth, ought to be done.Collection: Wisdom
Nature offers nothing that can be called this man's rather than another's; but under nature everything belongs to all.Collection: Men
The mind has greater power over the emotions, and is less subject thereto, insofar as it understands all things to be necessary.Collection: Mind
The more intelligible a thing is, the more easily it is retained in the memory, and counterwise, the less intelligible it is, the more easily we forget it.Collection: Memories
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.Collection: Believe
Speculation, like nature, abhors a vacuum.Collection: Vacuums
self-preservation is the primary and only foundation of virtue.Collection: Self
Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens. They who can treat secretly of the affairs of a nation have it absolutely under their authority; and as they plot against the enemy in time of war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace.Collection: War
In the mind there is no absolute or free will.Collection: Mind
A miracle signifies nothing more than an event... the cause of which cannot be explained by another familiar instance, or.... which the narrator is unable to explain.Collection: Miracle
Faith is nothing but obedience and piety.Collection: Obedience
God and all attributes of God are eternal.Collection: God
Everyone has as much right as he has might.Collection: Might
I have tried sedulously not to laugh at the acts of man, nor to lament them, nor to detest them, but to understand them.Collection: Men
Those who wish to seek out the cause of miracles and to understand the things of nature as philosophers, and not to stare at them in astonishment like fools, are soon considered heretical and impious, and proclaimed as such by those whom the mob adores as the interpreters of nature and the gods.Collection: Taken
If slavery, barbarism and desolation are to be called peace, men can have no worse misfortune.Collection: Men
Blessed are the weak who think that they are good because they have no claws.Collection: Blessed
God is a thing that thinks.Collection: Thinking
Laws directed against opinions affect the generous-minded rather than the wicked, and are adapted less for coercing criminals than for irritating the upright.Collection: Law
Statesman are suspected of plotting against mankind, rather than consulting their interests, and are esteemed more crafty than learned.Collection: Mankind
Care of the poor is incumbent on society as a whole.Collection: Justice
Everything in nature is a cause from which there flows some effect.Collection: Flow
If anyone conceives that he is loved by another, and believes that he has given no cause for such love, he will love that other in return.Collection: Life
Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak.Collection: Men