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
Baruch Spinoza quotes about
life mind force
Minds are not conquered by force, but by love and high-mindedness.
wisdom understanding intuition
The highest endeavor of the mind, and the highest virtue, it to understand things by intuition.
philosophical causes pantheism
God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things.
art freedom philosophical
Freedom is absolutely necessary for the progress in science and the liberal arts.
thinking lips purpose
The holy word of God is on everyone's lips...but...we see almost everyone presenting their own versions of God's word, with the sole purpose of using religion as a pretext for making others think as they do.
life hatred acting
Love or hatred towards a thing, which we conceive to be free, must, other things being similar, be greater than if it were felt towards a thing acting by necessity.
philosophical pride men
Pride is pleasure arising from a man's thinking too highly of himself.
causes flow effects
Everything in nature is a cause from which there flows some effect.
god attributes attributes-of-god
God and all attributes of God are eternal.
philosophical guidance reason
He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason.
god essence causes
God is the efficient cause not only of the existence of things, but also of their essence. Corr. Individual things are nothing but modifications of the attributes of God, or modes by which the attributes of God are expressed in a fixed and definite manner.
pain love-is ideas
Love is pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause, and hatred pain accompanied by the idea of an external cause.
believe men causes
Men believe themselves to be free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.
fighting men thinking
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.