Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinozawas a Dutch philosopher of Sephardi/Portuguese origin. By laying the groundwork for the 18th-century Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism, including modern conceptions of the self and the universe, he came to be considered one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy...
NationalityDutch
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth24 November 1632
men long impossible
So long as a man imagines that he cannot do this or that, so long as he is determined not to do it; and consequently so long as it is impossible to him that he should do it.
fighting men thinking
The greatest secret of monarchic rule...is to keep men deceived and to cloak in the specious name of religion the fear by which they must be checked, so that they will fight for slavery as they would for salvation, and will think it not shameful, but a most honorable achievement, to give their life and blood that one man may have a ground for boasting.
believe men causes
Men believe themselves to be free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.
pain love-is ideas
Love is pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause, and hatred pain accompanied by the idea of an external cause.
god essence causes
God is the efficient cause not only of the existence of things, but also of their essence. Corr. Individual things are nothing but modifications of the attributes of God, or modes by which the attributes of God are expressed in a fixed and definite manner.
philosophical guidance reason
He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason.
god attributes attributes-of-god
God and all attributes of God are eternal.
art freedom philosophical
Freedom is absolutely necessary for the progress in science and the liberal arts.
life hatred acting
Love or hatred towards a thing, which we conceive to be free, must, other things being similar, be greater than if it were felt towards a thing acting by necessity.
thinking lips purpose
The holy word of God is on everyone's lips...but...we see almost everyone presenting their own versions of God's word, with the sole purpose of using religion as a pretext for making others think as they do.
wisdom understanding intuition
The highest endeavor of the mind, and the highest virtue, it to understand things by intuition.
causes flow effects
Everything in nature is a cause from which there flows some effect.
mind emotion subjects
The mind has greater power over the emotions, and is less subject thereto, insofar as it understands all things to be necessary.
order words-of-wisdom pantheism
.... we are a part of nature as a whole, whose order we follow.