Baruch (de) Spinoza Dutch: Portuguese: born Baruch Espinosa; later as an author and a correspondent Benedictus de Spinoza, anglicized to Benedict de Spinoza; 24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677 was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Sephardi origin. These Baruch Spinoza quotes will motivate you.
Best Baruch Spinoza Quotes
- “The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding because to understand is to be free.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “No matter how thin you slice it, there will always be two sides.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “The most tyrannical of governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “What Paul says about Peter tells us more about Paul than about Peter.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “Men believe themselves to be free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
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“If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “Reason connot defeat emotion, an emotion can only be displaced or overcome by a stronger emotion.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “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.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “Nothing in nature is by chance… Something appears to be chance only because of our lack of knowledge.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
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“Desire nothing for yourself, which you do not desire for others.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “The highest endeavor of the mind, and the highest virtue, it to understand things by intuition.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “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.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
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“He who seeks equality between unequals seeks an absurdity.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “When a man is prey to his emotions, he is not his own master.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “God is not He who is, but That which is.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “Freedom is self-determination.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “The supreme mystery of despotism, its prop and stay, is to keep men in a state of deception, and with the specious title of religion to cloak the fear by which they must be held in check, so that they will fight for their servitude as if for salvation.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
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“We feel and know that we are eternal.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “Happiness is not the reward of virtue, but is virtue itself; nor do we delight in happiness because we restrain from our lusts; but on the contrary, because we delight in it, therefore we are able to restrain them.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “Philosophy has no end in view save truth; faith looks for nothing but obedience and piety.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “Hatred is increased by being reciprocated, and can on the other hand be destroyed by love.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
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“Freedom is absolutely necessary for the progress in science and the liberal arts.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “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.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “[Believers] are but triflers who, when they cannot explain a thing, run back to the will of God; this is, truly, a ridiculous way of expressing ignorance.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “Men who are ruled by reason desire nothing for themselves which they would not wish for all mankind.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “In the mind there is no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined to wish this or that by a cause, which has also been determined by another cause, and this last by another cause, and so on to infinity.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
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“Speculation, like nature, abhors a vacuum.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “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.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “No to laugh, not to lament, not to detest, but to understand.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “He, who knows how to distinguish between true and false, must have an adequate idea of true and false.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “Sadness diminishes a man’s powers” ~ Baruch Spinoza
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“Nature has no goal in view, and final causes are only human imaginings.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “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.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “I call him free who is led solely by reason.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “What everyone wants from life is continuous and genuine happiness.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
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“Pride is pleasure arising from a man’s thinking too highly of himself.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “Indulge yourself in pleasures only in so far as they are necessary for the preservation of health.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “A good thing which prevents us from enjoying a greater good is in truth an evil.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “Let unswerving integrity be your watchword.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “Laws which can be broken without any wrong to one’s neighbor are a laughing-stock; and such laws, instead of restraining the appetites and lusts of mankind, serve rather to heighten them. Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata [we always resist prohibitions, and yearn for what is denied us].” ~ Baruch Spinoza
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“If facts conflict with a theory, either the theory must be changed or the facts.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men’s natural abilities as to restrain them.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “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.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
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“True virtue is life under the direction of reason.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “The terms good and bad indicate no positive quality in things regarded in themselves, but are merely modes of thinking or notions, which we form from the comparison of things one with another. Thus one and the same thing can be at the same time good, bad, and indifferent. For instance, music is good for him that is melancholy, bad for him that mourns; for him that is deaf; it is neither good nor bad.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “The more a government strives to curtail freedom of speech, the more obstinately is it resisted; not indeed by the avaricious, … but by those whom good education, sound morality, and virtue have rendered more free.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “Men are mistaken in thinking themselves free; their opinion is made up of consciousness of their own actions, and ignorance of the causes by which they are determined.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “Superstition, then, is engendered, preserved, and fostered by fear.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
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“Nature is satisfied with little; and if she is, I am also.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “Those who know the true use of money, and regulate the measure of wealth according to their needs, live contented with few things.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “Minds are not conquered by force, but by love and high-mindedness.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “I can control my passions and emotions if I can understand their nature” ~ Baruch Spinoza
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“Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “The ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain by fear, nor to exact obedience, but to free every man from fear that he may live in all possible security… In fact the true aim of government is liberty.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “He who loves God cannot endeavor that God should love him in return.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “All is One (Nature, God)” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “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.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
- “The eternal wisdom of God … has shown itself forth in all things, but chiefly in the mind of man, and most of all in Jesus Christ.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
