Baruch Benedict de Spinoza
» Aid and Assistance » “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.”
» Desire » “Desire is the essence of a man.”
» Fame » “Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men.”
» Flattery » “None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.”
» Freedom » “Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.”
» Hope » “Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.”
» Humility » “Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.”
» Ignorance » “The greatest pride, or the greatest despondency, is the greatest ignorance of one’s self.”
» Immortality » “We feel and know that we are eternal.”
» Music » “Music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good or bad to the deaf.”
» Peace » “Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.”
» Perfection » “All excellent things are as difficult as they are rare.”
» Pride » “Pride is pleasure arising from a man’s thinking too highly of himself.”
» Speakers and Speaking » “Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.”
» Understanding » “I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.”
» Understanding » “The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.”
» Will and Will Power » “Will and intellect are one and the same.”
