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
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.
popular religion respect
Popular religion may be summed up as a respect for Ecclesiastes
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
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.
reality men giving
But if men would give heed to the nature of substance they would doubt less concerning the Proposition that Existence appertains to the nature of substance: rather they would reckon it an axiom above all others, and hold it among common opinions. For then by substance they would understand that which is in itself, and through itself is conceived, or rather that whose knowledge does not depend on the knowledge of any other thing.
hope believe men
We are so constituted by Nature that we easily believe the things we hope for, but believe only with difficulty those we fear, and that we regard such things more or less highly than is just. This is the source of the superstitions by which men everywhere are troubled. For the rest, I don
pride self reason
Pride is over-estimation of oneself by reason of self-love.