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.
— Baruch Spinoza
It may easily come to pass that a vain man may become proud and imagine himself pleasing to all when he is in reality a universal nuisance.
Sin cannot be conceived in a natural state, but only in a civil state, where it is decreed by common consent what is good or bad.
Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.
The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.
Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.
Pride is pleasure arising from a man's thinking too highly of himself.
All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.
True virtue is life under the direction of reason.
The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.
Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.
We feel and know that we are eternal.
Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.
Desire is the essence of a man.
To give aid to every poor man is far beyond the reach and power of every man. Care of the poor is incumbent on society as a whole.
Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.
Nothing in the universe is contingent, but all things are conditioned to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of the divine nature.
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.
I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.
All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.
I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.
Self-complacency is pleasure accompanied by the idea of oneself as cause.
Nothing exists from whose nature some effect does not follow.
Desire is the very essence of man.
I call him free who is led solely by reason.
Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.
Ambition is the immoderate desire for power.
The greatest pride, or the greatest despondency, is the greatest ignorance of one's self.
None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.
I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused.
He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason.
God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things.
Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.
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.
The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.
I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.
Freedom is absolutely necessary for the progress in science and the liberal arts.
If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.
Blessedness is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself.
Happiness is a virtue, not its reward.
Will and intellect are one and the same thing.
If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.
Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.
Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.
Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men.
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.
There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.
