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

More quotes by Baruch Spinoza

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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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I do not presume that I have found the best philosophy, I know that I understand the true philosophy.
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Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men's natural abilities as to restrain them.
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Many errors, of a truth, consist merely in the application of the wrong names of things.
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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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Things which are accidentally the causes either of hope or fear are called good or evil omens.
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We feel and know that we are eternal.
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Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear. [They are the two sides of a coin, so learning how to manage fear through learning, understanding, rationality, controlled imagination, preparation, mental focus (including distraction) and a gratitude attitude is very helpful.]
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I call him free who is led solely by reason.
Baruch Spinoza
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The proper study of a wise man is not how to die but how to live.
Baruch Spinoza
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A man is as much affected pleasurably or painfully by the image of a thing past or future as by the image of a thing present.
Baruch Spinoza
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I shall consider human actions and desires in exactly the same manner, as though I were concerned with lines, planes and solids.
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.
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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.
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Men believe themselves to be free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.
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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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The more intelligible a thing is, the more easily it is retained in the memory, and counterwise, the less intelligible it is, the more easily we forget it.
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.
Baruch Spinoza
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Reality and perfection are synonymous.
Baruch Spinoza
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Measure, time and number are nothing but modes of thought or rather of imagination.
Baruch Spinoza