Baruch Spinoza

If anyone conceives, that an object of his love joins itself to another with closer bonds of friendship than he himself has attained to, he will be affected with hatred towards the loved object and with envy towards his rival.

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.

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.

I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.

Freedom is absolutely necessary for the progress in science and the liberal arts.

Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.

Ambition is the immoderate desire for power.

For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.

In so far as the mind sees things in their eternal aspect, it participates in eternity.

Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare.

If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.

Sin cannot be conceived in a natural state, but only in a civil state, where it is decreed by common consent what is good or bad.

The idea, which constitutes the actual being of the human mind, is not simple, but compounded of a great number of ideas.

The multitude always strains after rarities and exceptions, and thinks little of the gifts of nature; so that, when prophecy is talked of, ordinary knowledge is not supposed to be included. Nevertheless it has as much right as any other to be called Divine.

True knowledge of good and evil as we possess is merely abstract or general, and the judgment which we pass on the order of things and the connection of causes, with a view to determining what is good or bad for us in the present, is rather imaginary than real.

The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed along with the body, but something of it remains, which is eternal.

.... we are a part of nature as a whole, whose order we follow.

Indulge yourself in pleasures only in so far as they are necessary for the preservation of health.

If the way which I have pointed out as leading to this result (i.e., power over the emotions by which the wise man surpasses the ignorant man) seems exceedingly hard, it may nevertheless be discovered. Needs must it be hard, since it is so seldom found. How would it be possible, if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labour be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.

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.

In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth.