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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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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
Laws
Adapted
Opinion
Directed
Minded
Law
Affect
Rather
Wicked
Less
Opinions
Coercing
Criminals
Upright
Generous
Irritating

More quotes by Baruch Spinoza

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He that can carp in the most eloquent or acute manner at the weakness of the human mind is held by his fellows as almost divine.
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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.
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Freedom is absolutely necessary for the progress in science and the liberal arts.
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Men who are ruled by reason desire nothing for themselves which they would not wish for all mankind.
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Ambition is the immoderate desire for honor.
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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.
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God is a thing that thinks.
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Desire nothing for yourself, which you do not desire for others.
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Love is pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause, and hatred pain accompanied by the idea of an external cause.
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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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Those who know the true use of money, and regulate the measure of wealth according to their needs, live contented with few things.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Hatred which is completely vanquished by love passes into love: and love is thereupon greater than if hatred had not preceded it.
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For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from force of character: for obedience is the constant will to execute what, by the general decree of the commonwealth, ought to be done.
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True knowledge of good and evil as we possess is merely abstract or general, and the judgment which we pass on the order of things and the connection of causes, with a view to determining what is good or bad for us in the present, is rather imaginary than real.
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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.
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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.
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I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.
Baruch Spinoza