Quote

I make this chief distinction between religion and superstition, that the latter is founded on ignorance, the former on knowledge.

Baruch Spinoza

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Make
Chief
Chiefs
Distinction
Latter
Former
Ignorance
Superstition
Knowledge
Superstitions
Religion
Founded

More quotes by Baruch Spinoza

Image
Things which are accidentally the causes either of hope or fear are called good or evil omens.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
He who wishes to revenge injuries by reciprocal hatred will live in misery. But he who endeavors to drive away hatred by means of love, fights with pleasure and confidence he resists equally one or many men, and scarcely needs at all the help of fortune. Those whom he conquers yield joyfully
Baruch Spinoza
Image
To comprehend an idea, a person must simultaneously accept it as true. Conscious analysis - which, depending on the idea, may occur almost immediately or with considerable effort - allows the mind to reject what it intially accepted as fact.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
Nature offers nothing that can be called this man's rather than another's but under nature everything belongs to all.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
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.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
If we love something similar to ourselves, we endeavor, as far as we can, to bring it about that it should love us in return.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Reason connot defeat emotion, an emotion can only be displaced or overcome by a stronger emotion.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
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.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
Laws which can be broken without any wrong to one's neighbor are a laughing-stock and such laws, instead of restraining the appetites and lusts of mankind, serve rather to heighten them. Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata [we always resist prohibitions, and yearn for what is denied us].
Baruch Spinoza
Image
The most tyrannical of governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
Self-complacency is pleasure accompanied by the idea of oneself as cause.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
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
Image
God is a thing that thinks.
Baruch Spinoza
Image
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
Image
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