"What everyone wants from life is continuous and genuine happiness."
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Quote collection
Baruch Spinoza quotes (page 2 of 12)
223 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"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."
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"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."
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"He who seeks equality between unequals seeks an absurdity."
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"Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men's natural abilities as to restrain them."
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"We are so constituted by Nature that we easily believe the things we hope for, but believe only with difficulty those we fear, and that we regard such things more or less highly than is just. This is the source of the superstitions by which men everywhere are troubled. For the rest, I don"
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"When a man is prey to his emotions, he is not his own master."
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"We feel and know that we are eternal."
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"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."
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"Superstition, then, is engendered, preserved, and fostered by fear."
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"God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things."
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"Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd."
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"In the state of nature, wrong-doing is impossible ; or, if anyone does wrong, it is to himself, not to another."
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"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."
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"He who loves God cannot endeavor that God should love him in return."
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"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]."
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"Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand."
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"If facts conflict with a theory, either the theory must be changed or the facts."
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"Nature has no goal in view, and final causes are only human imaginings."
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"Freedom is self-determination."
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