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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.

Baruch Spinoza

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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
Believe
Everyone
Anger
Men
Often
Atheism
Write
Minds
Gratify
Cannot
Independent
Prescribe
Anything
Laws
Appease
Must
Opinion
Forbid
Writing
Law
Abide
Mind
Rather
Passed

More quotes by Baruch Spinoza

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He, who knows how to distinguish between true and false, must have an adequate idea of true and false.
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[Believers] are but triflers who, when they cannot explain a thing, run back to the will of God this is, truly, a ridiculous way of expressing ignorance.
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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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In proportion as we endeavor to live according to the guidance of reason, shall we strive as much as possible to depend less on hope, to liberate ourselves from fear, to rule fortune, and to direct our actions by the sure counsels of reason.
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If a man had begun to hate an object of his love, so that love is thoroughly destroyed, he will, causes being equal, regard it with more hatred than if he had never loved it, and his hatred will be in proportion to the strength of his former love.
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Yet nature cannot be contravened, but preserves a fixed and immutable order.
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Desire nothing for yourself, which you do not desire for others.
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Those who wish to seek out the cause of miracles and to understand the things of nature as philosophers, and not to stare at them in astonishment like fools, are soon considered heretical and impious, and proclaimed as such by those whom the mob adores as the interpreters of nature and the gods.
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The greatest good is the knowledge of the union which the mind has with the whole nature.
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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.
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As though God had turned away from the wise, and written his decrees, not in the mind of man but in the entrails of beasts, or left them to be proclaimed by the inspiration and instinct of fools, madmen, and birds. Such is the unreason to which terror can drive mankind!
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Laws directed against opinions affect the generous-minded rather than the wicked, and are adapted less for coercing criminals than for irritating the upright.
Baruch Spinoza
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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.
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Schisms do not originate in a love of truth, which is a source of courtesy and gentleness, but rather in an inordinate desire for supremacy.
Baruch Spinoza
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Self-complacency is pleasure accompanied by the idea of oneself as cause.
Baruch Spinoza
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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
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The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.
Baruch Spinoza
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The more a government strives to curtail freedom of speech, the more obstinately is it resisted not indeed by the avaricious, ... but by those whom good education, sound morality, and virtue have rendered more free.
Baruch Spinoza
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Faith is nothing but obedience and piety.
Baruch Spinoza
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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