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 hands generosity
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.
life return should
When we love a thing similar to ourselves, we endeavor, as far as we can, to bring about that it should love us in return.
ideas true-and-false adequate
He who would distinguish the true from the false must have an adequate idea of what is true and false.
exercise men thinking
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.
mind body limits
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.
men law broken
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.
wise men atheism
The proper study of a wise man is not how to die but how to live.
views goal causes
Nature has no goal in view, and final causes are only human imaginings.
vacuums speculation
Speculation, like nature, abhors a vacuum.
reality perfection
Reality and perfection are synonymous.
real liberty judgment
The real disturbers of the peace are those who, in a free state, seek to curtail the liberty of judgment which they are unable to tyrannize over.
reality men giving
But if men would give heed to the nature of substance they would doubt less concerning the Proposition that Existence appertains to the nature of substance: rather they would reckon it an axiom above all others, and hold it among common opinions. For then by substance they would understand that which is in itself, and through itself is conceived, or rather that whose knowledge does not depend on the knowledge of any other thing.
care infinite falsity
We must take care not to admit as true anything, which is only probable. For when one falsity has been let in, infinite others follow.
doe influence effects
Nothing exists from whose nature some effect does not follow.