Quote

The supreme mystery of despotism, its prop and stay, is to keep men in a state of deception, and with the specious title of religion to cloak the fear by which they must be held in check, so that they will fight for their servitude as if for salvation.

Baruch Spinoza

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Baruch Spinoza
Age: 44 †
Born: 1632
Born: November 24
Died: 1677
Died: February 21
Bible Translator
Grammarian
Instrument Maker
Linguist
Optical Instrument Maker
Philosopher
Political Scientist
Theologian
Translator
Amsterdam
Netherlands
Benedict de Spinoza
Baruch de Espinosa
Barukh Shpinozah
Benoît de Spinoza
Sbīnūzā
Ispīnūzā
Barukh Spinoza
Bento de Espinosa
Baruch d' Espinoza
Shpinozah
Baruch de Spinoza
Spinoza
Benoit de Spinoza
Benedictus De Spinoza
Benedictus Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Benedictus de Spinoza
States
Mystery
Deception
Must
Stay
Title
Specious
Men
Fight
Check
Prop
State
Titles
Cloak
Fighting
Checks
Cloaks
Religion
Held
Servitude
Fear
Salvation
Props
Keep
Supreme
Despotism

More quotes by Baruch Spinoza

Image
A miracle signifies nothing more than an event... the cause of which cannot be explained by another familiar instance, or.... which the narrator is unable to explain.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
The highest endeavor of the mind, and the highest virtue, it to understand things by intuition.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
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 Spinoza
Image
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
Baruch Spinoza
Image
Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men's natural abilities as to restrain them.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
Many errors, of a truth, consist merely in the application of the wrong names of things. For if a man says that the lines which are drawn from the centre of the circle to the circumference are not equal, he understands by the circle, at all events for the time, something else than mathematicians understand by it.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
Of all the things that are beyond my power, I value nothing more highly than to be allowed the honor of entering into bonds of friendship with people who sincerely love truth. For, of things beyond our power, I believe there is nothing in the world which we can love with tranquility except such men.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
How would it be possible if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labor be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
Blessed are the weak who think that they are good because they have no claws.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
Hatred which is completely vanquished by love passes into love: and love is thereupon greater than if hatred had not preceded it.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
If we conceive that anyone loves, desires, or hates anything which we ourselves love, desire, or hate, we shall thereupon regard the thing in question with more steadfast love, etc. On the contrary, if we think that anyone shrinks from something that we love, we shall undergo vacillation of the soul.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak. But experience more than sufficiently teaches that men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
I shall consider human actions and desires in exactly the same manner, as though I were concerned with lines, planes and solids.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
I call him free who is led solely by reason.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
The greatest good is the knowledge of the union which the mind has with the whole nature.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
The most tyrannical of governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
I have resolved to demonstrate by a certain and undoubted course of argument, or to deduce from the very condition of human nature, not what is new and unheard of, but only such things as agree best with practice.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
All the objects pursued by the multitude not only bring no remedy that tends to preserve our being, but even act as hinderances, causing the death not seldom of those who possess them, and always of those who are possessed by them.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
Ambition is the immoderate desire for honor.
Baruch Spinoza