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
cannot cause clearly events explained fixed follow human mean merely miracles natural nature ordinary reference relation
As nature preserves a fixed and immutable order; it must clearly follow that miracles are only intelligible as a relation to human opinions, and merely mean events of which the natural cause cannot be explained by a reference to any ordinary occurren
evil causes omen
Things which are accidentally the causes either of hope or fear are called good or evil omens.
miracle causes narrators
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.
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.
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.
causes flow effects
Everything in nature is a cause from which there flows some effect.
philosophical causes pantheism
God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things.
views goal causes
Nature has no goal in view, and final causes are only human imaginings.
bad good music neither nor time
One and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent, e.g., music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf.
bad deaf good music neither nor
Music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf
popular religion respect
Popular religion may be summed up as a respect for Ecclesiastes
absence mere peace springs state virtue war
For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.
human nor weep
I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.
real discovery mind
After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else: whether, in fact, there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness.