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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

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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
Difficulty
Things
Regard
Men
Source
Constituted
Rest
Troubled
Less
Superstitions
Hope
Highly
Fear
Everywhere
Nature
Easily

More quotes by Baruch Spinoza

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It is usually the case with most men that their nature is so constituted that they pity those who fare badly and envy those who fare well.
Baruch Spinoza
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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.
Baruch Spinoza
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Reason connot defeat emotion, an emotion can only be displaced or overcome by a stronger emotion.
Baruch Spinoza
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I make this chief distinction between religion and superstition, that the latter is founded on ignorance, the former on knowledge.
Baruch Spinoza
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No matter how thin you slice it, there will always be two sides.
Baruch Spinoza
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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.
Baruch Spinoza
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Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens. They who can treat secretly of the affairs of a nation have it absolutely under their authority and as they plot against the enemy in time of war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace.
Baruch Spinoza
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Many errors, of a truth, consist merely in the application of the wrong names of things.
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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[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.
Baruch Spinoza
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He who lives according to the guidance of reason strives as much as possible to repay the hatred, anger, or contempt of others towards himself with love or generosity. ...hatred is increased by reciprocal hatred, and, on the other hand, can be extinguished by love, so that hatred passes into love.
Baruch Spinoza
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Philosophers conceive of the passions which harass us as vices into which men fall by their own fault, and, therefore, generally deride, bewail, or blame them, or execrate them, if they wish to seem unusually pious.
Baruch Spinoza
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I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.
Baruch Spinoza
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No to laugh, not to lament, not to detest, but to understand.
Baruch Spinoza
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Whatever increases, decreases, limits or extends the body's power of action, increases decreases, limits, or extends the mind's power of action. And whatever increases, decreases, limits, or extends the mind's power of action, also increases, decreases, limits, or extends the body's power of action.
Baruch Spinoza
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Nothing in nature is by chance... Something appears to be chance only because of our lack of knowledge.
Baruch Spinoza
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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!
Baruch Spinoza
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I believe that a triangle, if it could speak, would say that God is eminently triangular, and a circle that the divine nature is eminently circular and thus would every one ascribe his own attributes to God.
Baruch Spinoza
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The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed along with the body, but something of it remains, which is eternal.
Baruch Spinoza
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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