The greatest pride, or the greatest despondency, is the greatest ignorance of one's self.
Baruch SpinozaRead
In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth.
Interpretation
What this quote means
We often act based on what is likely to happen, but in our thoughts, we must seek the truth.
This quote by Baruch Spinoza emphasizes the distinction between practical decision-making and speculative thinking. In everyday life, we often choose actions based on probabilities and expected outcomes, navigating the uncertainties of life. However, in the realm of thought and philosophy, our pursuit should be directed toward the truth, regardless of its likelihood or practicality. This highlights the duality of human experience, where practicality may sometimes conflict with deeper truths.
Themes
TruthProbabilityLifeDecision-MakingPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophy class discussing the nature of truth.
More from Baruch Spinoza
All quotes βA man is as much affected pleasurably or painfully by the image of a thing past or future as by the image of a thing present.
Baruch SpinozaRead
He who seeks to regulate everything by law is more likely to arouse vices than to reform them. It is best to grant what cannot be abolished, even though it be in itself harmful. How many evils spring from luxury, envy, avarice, drunkenness and the like, yet these are tolerated because they cannot be prevented by legal enactments.
Baruch SpinozaRead
No one doubts but that we imagine time from the very fact that we imagine other bodies to be moved slower or faster or equally fast. We are accustomed to determine duration by the aid of some measure of motion.
Baruch SpinozaRead
Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear. [They are the two sides of a coin, so learning how to manage fear through learning, understanding, rationality, controlled imagination, preparation, mental focus (including distraction) and a gratitude attitude is very helpful.]
Baruch SpinozaRead
He who wishes to revenge injuries by reciprocal hatred will live in misery. But he who endeavors to drive away hatred by means of love, fights with pleasure and confidence; he resists equally one or many men, and scarcely needs at all the help of fortune. Those whom he conquers yield joyfully
Baruch SpinozaRead
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Every bird which flies has the thread of the infinite in its claw. Germination includes the hatching of a meteor and the tap of a swallow's bill breaking the egg, and it leads forward the birth of an earth-worm and the advent of Socrates.
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One dumb-bell, Watson! Consider an athlete with one dumb-bell. Picture to yourself the unilateral development - the imminent danger of a spinal curvature. Shocking, Watson, shocking!
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I do not understand the capricious lewdness of the sleeping mind.
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Surely what a man does when he is taken off guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is. If there are rats in a cellar, you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats; it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me ill tempered; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am.
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Authors from whom others steal should not complain, but rejoice. Where there is no game there are no poachers.
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