Quotes by Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de)

"Desire is the essence of a man."

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) on desire   

"Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men."

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) on fame   

"None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not."

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) on flattery   

"Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone."

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) on freedom   

"To give aid to every poor man is far beyond the reach and power of every man. Care of the poor is incumbent on society as a whole."

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) on aid and assistance   

"Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear."

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) on hope
44 fans of this quote   

"Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious."

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) on humility   

"The greatest pride, or the greatest despondency, is the greatest ignorance of one's self."

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) on ignorance   

"We feel and know that we are eternal."

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) on immortality   

"Music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good or bad to the deaf."

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) on music   

"Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice."

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) on peace   

"All excellent things are as difficult as they are rare."

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) on perfection   

"Pride is pleasure arising from a man's thinking too highly of himself."

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) on pride
3 fans of this quote   

"Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words."

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) on speakers and speaking   

"I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused."

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) on beauty   

"I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them."

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) on understanding   

"The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free."

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) on understanding   

"Will and intellect are one and the same."

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) on power   

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"There is no individual thing in nature, which is more useful to man, than a man who lives in obedience to reason."

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) on reason   

"Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd."

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) on reason