Quotes by Baruch Spinoza

“Music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf”

“All noble things are as difficult as they are rare”

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

“Happiness is a virtue, not its reward”

“Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.”

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

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

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

“All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.”

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

I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of the peace.

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

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.

Minds, however, are conquered not by arms, but by love and nobility.

He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason

whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived

The good which every man, who follows after virtue, desires for himself he will also desire for other men...

I should attempt to treat human vice and folly geometrically... the passions of hatred, anger, envy, and so on, considered in themselves, follow from the necessity and efficacy of nature... I shall, therefore, treat the nature and strength of the emotion in exactly the same manner, as though I were concerned with lines, planes, and solids.

Things which are accidentally the causes either of hope or fear are called good or evil omens.

aquele que quer responder às injúrias com o ódio vive na tristeza ou na mágoa, aquele que quer vencer o ódio com o amor combate alegremente e sem temor. Triunfa tanto sobre um grande número de inimigos quanto sobre um único, prescindindo de todo socorro da fortuna. Aqueles a quem ele consegue vencer ficam alegres por terem sido derrotados; e, derrotados, eles não são menos fortes; ao contrário, são mais fortes.