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
aids ceremony blessedness
Ceremonies are no aid to blessedness.
Whatsoever is, is in God.
men religion useless
Men would never be superstitious, if they could govern all their circumstances by set rules, or if they were always favoured by fortune: but being frequently driven into straits where rules are useless, and being often kept fluctuating pitiably between hope and fear by the uncertainty of fortune's greedily coveted favours, they are consequently for the most part, very prone to credulity.
laughing detest lament
No to laugh, not to lament, not to detest, but to understand.
absurdity
He who seeks equality between unequals seeks an absurdity.
hope fear cancer
There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.
order words-of-wisdom pantheism
.... we are a part of nature as a whole, whose order we follow.
philosophical passion emotion
I can control my passions and emotions if I can understand their nature
communication law evil
In the state of nature, wrong-doing is impossible; or, if anyone does wrong, it is to himself, not to another. For no one by the law of nature is bound to please another, unless he chooses, nor to hold anything to be good or evil, but what he himself, according to his own temperament, pronounces to be so; and, to speak generally, nothing is forbidden by the law of nature, except what is beyond everyone's 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.
believe independent writing
Laws which prescribe what everyone must believe, and forbid men to say or write anything against this or that opinion, are often passed to gratify, or rather to appease the anger of those who cannot abide independent minds.
school men natural
Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men's natural abilities as to restrain them.
views goal causes
Nature has no goal in view, and final causes are only human imaginings.
popular religion respect
Popular religion may be summed up as a respect for Ecclesiastes