Quotes by Baruch Spinoza

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Ambition is a desire for excessive glory.

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Understanding is the beginning of agreement.

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Experience teaches us that man is master of nothing less than his own language.

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No one is more flattered than the ambitious who wanted to be first, but failed.

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No one is more inclined to envy than people who humble themselves.

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There is no doubt that people are naturally inclined to hatred and envy, and education only strengthens these attributes. For parents usually encourage virtue in children only by methods based on their honor and envy.

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Ignorance is not a reason. Impoliteness is not an argument.

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Don't cry or laugh, but understand.

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Peace is not the absence of war, but the virtue that comes from fortitude.

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There is a difference between drive and desire only in that "desire" most often relates to people when they are aware of their drive, and thus the following definition can be given: desire is a conscious drive.

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People find it most helpful to do what facilitates the strengthening of the friendship.

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Men think that they are free only to the extent that they obey their passions, and when they are forced to live according to the law, they think that their rights are violated.

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And to subdue courage and to subdue fear requires equally great strength or fortitude of spirit.

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Jealousy is someone's care to enjoy what they have acquired and to keep it.

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The free man thinks of nothing so little as death, and his wisdom lies in the meditation of life, and not of death.

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The man who knows what shame is has the desire to live honestly.

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The man who is guided only by emotions or opinions is different from the man who is guided by reason. The first does not know, without his will, what he is doing, the second only does what he considers important in life. Therefore, I call the first a slave, and the second, free.

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The free man will never pretend, he will always be honest.

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He who is easily moved by compassion, and is moved by the unhappiness or tears of others, repents at last, as we, being under the influence of the affections, easily yield to false tears.

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Happiness is not a reward for virtue, but virtue itself; we do not delight in happiness because we have tamed our passions, but on the contrary, delight in happiness makes us able to tame them.

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The drive to do or not do something just to please other people is called ambition.

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Fear is the cause by which superstition is born, maintained and spread.

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Fear arises as a result of weakness of spirit.

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Reference to an authority is not an argument.

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Compassion is a dissatisfaction that accompanies the idea of ​​an evil that has happened to someone that we imagine ourselves to be similar to.

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Paul's words about Peter tell us more about Paul than about Peter.

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He who does not stoop to help others, either by reason or by mercy, is rightly called inhuman.

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Excessive pride or excessive humility represents the limit of self-knowledge.

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Shame is a well-known form of sadness that arises in man when he sees that his deeds are despised by others.

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All that was once venerated in false piety was nothing to the dejected soul but imagination and delusion.

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All good passions are of such a character and nature, that we cannot exist or protect without them, they belong to us naturally, like love, desire, and like everything proper to love.

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Any kind of love that does not have as its cause the freedom of the spirit, but something else, easily turns into hatred.

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Souls are not won by the gun, but by love and kindness.

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If a stone in free fall could think, it would believe that it is falling of its own accord.

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If you want life to smile at you, give it your good mood first.

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If one knows what decision to make in order to do something good or prevent something bad from happening, but does not do it, it is called being vacillating.

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Envy is a special kind of hatred, because it acts on man, so that he feels displeasure at the sight of another's happiness, and conversely, finds pleasure in another's unhappiness.

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Truth is the touchstone of both itself and lies.

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As soon as you imagine that you are unable to do some work, it becomes impossible for you to do it.

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Divine justice allows the devil to deceive men with impunity, but does not allow men miserably deceived and enticed by him to go unpunished.

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The essence of man is manifested in desires.

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A thing does not cease to be true just because it is not recognized as such by many.

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All that is wonderful is hard and rare.

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There is no hope without fear and no fear without hope.

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Everyone has the right to choose their personal beliefs. We can only judge a person's faith based on what kind of fruit it produced.

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A sad state of mind ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and clear picture of it.

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Don't laugh at the world, don't cry, but understand it.

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He is the greatest slave who is addicted to his pleasures and can neither see nor do what is useful to him.

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People consider themselves free because they are aware of their wills and desires, and the reasons that make them want and want, because they do not know them, they have no idea.

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A person subject to his emotions (...) is not his own master, but the master of fate, and he is so much under the power of this that, although he sees the good, he is often forced to follow the bad.

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Nature has no set goals.

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From what Paul says about Peter, we get to know Paul more than Peter.

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New clothes? Why the? Maybe I'll be a different person in it? It's bad if the sack is worth more than the meat inside.

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People think they are free only because they are aware of their actions, but they do not know the reasons that determine them.

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He who loves God does not ask God to love him back.