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. . . to know the order of nature, and regard the universe as orderly is the highest function of the mind.

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
Mind
Orderly
Regard
Function
Highest
Universe
Order
Nature

More quotes by 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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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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Men are especially intolerant of serving and being ruled by, their equals.
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Self-complacency is pleasure accompanied by the idea of oneself as cause.
Baruch Spinoza
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We must take care not to admit as true anything, which is only probable. For when one falsity has been let in, infinite others follow.
Baruch Spinoza
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He who hates anyone will endeavor to do him an injury, unless he fears that a greater injury will thereby accrue to himself on the other hand, he who loves anyone will, by the same law, seek to benefit him.
Baruch Spinoza
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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].
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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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True virtue is life under the direction of reason.
Baruch Spinoza
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No to laugh, not to lament, not to detest, but to understand.
Baruch Spinoza
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Indulge yourself in pleasures only in so far as they are necessary for the preservation of health.
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.
Baruch Spinoza
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Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.
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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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 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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Man can, indeed, act contrarily to the decrees of God, as far as they have been written like laws in the minds of ourselves or the prophets, but against that eternal decree of God, which is written in universal nature, and has regard to the course of nature as a whole, he can do nothing.
Baruch Spinoza
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Things which are accidentally the causes either of hope or fear are called good or evil omens.
Baruch Spinoza
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...The body is affected by the image of the thing, in the same way as if the thing were actually present.
Baruch Spinoza
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Reason connot defeat emotion, an emotion can only be displaced or overcome by a stronger emotion.
Baruch Spinoza