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
reality men may
It may easily come to pass that a vain man may become proud and imagine himself pleasing to all when he is in reality a universal nuisance.
happiness philosophical acceptance
Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.
life thinking men
A free man thinks of nothing less than of death; and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life.
awareness immortality feels
We feel and know that we are eternal.
philosophical ambition desire
Ambition is the immoderate desire for power.
men desire tongue
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, and can moderate their desires more easily than their words.
facts conflict theory
If facts conflict with a theory, either the theory must be changed or the facts.
life mind force
Minds are not conquered by force, but by love and high-mindedness.
desire courtesy source
Schisms do not originate in a love of truth, which is a source of courtesy and gentleness, but rather in an inordinate desire for supremacy.
hate ambition thinking
everyone endeavors as much as possible to make others love what he loves, and to hate what he hates... This effort to make everyone approve what we love or hate is in truth ambition, and so we see that each person by nature desires that other persons should live according to his way of thinking...
life want genuine-happiness
What everyone wants from life is continuous and genuine happiness.
believe moving men
Further conceive, I beg, that a stone, while continuing in motion, should be capable of thinking and knowing, that it is endeavoring, as far as it can, to continue to move. Such a stone, being conscious merely of its own endeavor and not at all indifferent, would believe itself to be completely free, and would think that it continued in motion solely because of its own wish. This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined.
obedience piety
Faith is nothing but obedience and piety.
giving-up real struggle
The more you struggle to live, the less you live. Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing. Instead, surrender to what is real within you, for that alone is sure....you are above everything distressing.