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
lying men names
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.
doe influence effects
Nothing exists from whose nature some effect does not follow.
men law broken
All laws which can be broken without any injury to another, are counted but a laughing-stock, and are so far from bridling the desires and lusts of men, that on the contrary they stimulate them.
philosophical firsts virtue
The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.
religion atheism reason
I call him free who is led solely by reason.
men laughing understanding
I have tried sedulously not to laugh at the acts of man, nor to lament them, nor to detest them, but to understand them.
ideas true-and-false adequate
He who would distinguish the true from the false must have an adequate idea of what is true and false.
nature law understanding
Nothing comes to pass in nature, which can be set down to a flaw therein; for nature is always the same and everywhere one and thesame in her efficiency and power of action; that is, nature's laws and ordinances whereby all things come to pass and change from one form to another, are everywhere and always; so that there should be one and the same method of understanding the nature of all things whatsoever, namely, through nature's universal laws and rules.
realizing difficult
Everything great is just as difficult to realize as it is rare to find.
might
Everyone has as much right as he has might.
care infinite falsity
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.
vacuums speculation
Speculation, like nature, abhors a vacuum.
law liberty libertarian
He who regulates everything by laws, is more likely to arouse vices than reform them.
truth men circles
Many errors, of a truth, consist merely in the application of the wrong names of things. For if a man says that the lines which are drawn from the centre of the circle to the circumference are not equal, he understands by the circle, at all events for the time, something else than mathematicians understand by it.