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
suffering emotion form
Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.
mind emotion subjects
The mind has greater power over the emotions, and is less subject thereto, insofar as it understands all things to be necessary.
philosophical passion emotion
I can control my passions and emotions if I can understand their nature
stronger overcoming emotion
Reason connot defeat emotion, an emotion can only be displaced or overcome by a stronger emotion.
love emotional emotion
The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.
men emotion prey
When a man is prey to his emotions, he is not his own master.
melancholy deaf realism
One and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent, e.g., music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf.
vacuums speculation
Speculation, like nature, abhors a vacuum.
philosophy views religion
Philosophy has no end in view save truth; faith looks for nothing but obedience and piety.
integrity ethics
Let unswerving integrity be your watchword.
war philosophical character
Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.
philosophical virtue reason
True virtue is life under the direction of reason.
life pain hate
From what has been said we can clearly understand the nature of Love and Hate. Love is nothing else but pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause: Hate is nothing else but pain accompanied by the idea of an external cause. We further see, that he who loves necessarily endeavors to have, and to keep present to him, the object of his love; while he who hates endeavors to remove and destroy the object of his hatred.
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.