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If facts conflict with a theory, either the theory must be changed or the facts.

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
Must
Conflict
Theory
Changed
Either
Facts

More quotes by Baruch Spinoza

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The idea, which constitutes the actual being of the human mind, is not simple, but compounded of a great number of ideas.
Baruch Spinoza
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The safest way for a state is to lay down the rule that religion is comprised solely in the exercise of charity and justice, and that the rights of rulers in sacred, no less than in secular matters, should merely have to do with actions, but that every man should think what he likes and say what he thinks.
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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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.
Baruch Spinoza
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The most tyrannical of governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts.
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 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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Desire nothing for yourself, which you do not desire for others.
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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If anyone conceives that he is loved by another, and believes that he has given no cause for such love, he will love that other in return.
Baruch Spinoza
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Blessed are the weak who think that they are good because they have no claws.
Baruch Spinoza
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If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.
Baruch Spinoza
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Happiness is a virtue, not its reward.
Baruch Spinoza
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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
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God is a thing that thinks.
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
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As men's habits of mind differ, so that some more readily embrace one form of faith, some another, for what moves one to pray may move another to scoff, I conclude ... that everyone should be free to choose for himself the foundations of his creed, and that faith should be judged only by its fruits.
Baruch Spinoza
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Human infirmity in moderating and checking the emotions I name bondage : for, when a man is a prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune : so much so, that he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse.
Baruch Spinoza
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Statesman are suspected of plotting against mankind, rather than consulting their interests, and are esteemed more crafty than learned.
Baruch Spinoza
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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.
Baruch Spinoza