Baruch Spinoza

He who seeks equality amongst unequals seeks the absurd .

Blessed are the weak who think that they are good because they have no claws.

Deus, sive Natura .

Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.

Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.

God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things.

I have taken great care not to deride, bewail, or execrate human actions, but to understand them.

To bring aid to everyone in need far surpasses the powers and advantage of a private person. . . . So the case of the poor falls upon society as a whole.

There is no hope without fear, and no fear without hope.

I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.

Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself; neither do we rejoice therein, because we control our lusts, but contrariwise, because we rejoice therein, we are able to control our lusts.

Minds are conquered not by arms, but by love and magnanimity.

None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.

Pride is over-estimation of oneself by reason of self-love.

Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak. But experience more than sufficiently teaches that men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more easily than their words.

A vain man may become proud and imagine himself pleasing to all when he is in reality a universal nuisance.

The mind has greater power over the emotions, and is less subject thereto, insofar as it understands all things to be necessary.

He who loves God cannot endeavor that God should love him in return.

It is sure that those are most desirous of honour or glory who cry out loudest of its abuse and the vanity of the world.

I saw that all things I feared, and which feared me, had nothing good or bad in them save insofar as the mind was affected by them.

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it we must direct our lives in such a way as to please the fancy of men, avoiding what they dislike and seeking what is pleasing to them.

It is usually the case with most men that their nature is so constituted that they pity those who fare badly and envy those who fare well.

If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.

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.

A good thing which prevents us from enjoying a greater good is in truth an evil.

If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.

We feel and know that we are eternal.

In refusing benefits caution must be used lest we seem to despise or to refuse them for fear of having to repay them in kind.