Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinozawas a Dutch philosopher of Sephardi/Portuguese origin. By laying the groundwork for the 18th-century Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism, including modern conceptions of the self and the universe, he came to be considered one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy...
NationalityDutch
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth24 November 1632
might
Everyone has as much right as he has might.
God is not He who is, but That which is.
superstitions
Superstition, then, is engendered, preserved, and fostered by fear.
jesus men mind
The eternal wisdom of God ... has shown itself forth in all things, but chiefly in the mind of man, and most of all in Jesus Christ.
thinking
God is a thing that thinks.
past mind body
The mind can only imagine anything, or remember what is past, while the body endures.
evil causes omen
Things which are accidentally the causes either of hope or fear are called good or evil omens.
humble humility ambitious
Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.
mind wish lasts
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.
freedom determined action
Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.
men essence desire
Desire is the essence of a man.
law liberty libertarian
He who regulates everything by laws, is more likely to arouse vices than reform them.
passion envy hatred
I should attempt to treat human vice and folly geometrically... the passions of hatred, anger, envy, and so on, considered in themselves, follow from the necessity and efficacy of nature... I shall, therefore, treat the nature and strength of the emotion in exactly the same manner, as though I were concerned with lines, planes, and solids.
religion atheism reason
I call him free who is led solely by reason.