Baruch Spinoza

“The formation of society serves not only for defensive purposes, but is also very useful, and, indeed, absolutely necessary, as rendering possible the division of labor. If men did not render mutual assistance to each other, no one would have either the skill or the time to provide for his own sustenance and preservation: for all men are not equally apt for all work, and no one would be capable of preparing all that he individually stood in need of. Strength and time, I repeat, would fail, if every one had in person to plow, to sow, to reap, to grind corn, to cook, to weave, to stitch and perform the other numerous functions required to keep life going; to say nothing of the arts and sciences which are also entirely necessary to the perfection and blessedness of human nature.”

“I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.”

“He who has a true idea simultaneously knows that he has a true idea, and cannot doubt of the truth of the thing perceived.”

“aquele que quer responder às injúrias com o ódio vive na tristeza ou na mágoa, aquele que quer vencer o ódio com o amor combate alegremente e sem temor. Triunfa tanto sobre um grande número de inimigos quanto sobre um único, prescindindo de todo socorro da fortuna. Aqueles a quem ele consegue vencer ficam alegres por terem sido derrotados; e, derrotados, eles não são menos fortes; ao contrário, são mais fortes.”

“He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason.”

“Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.”

“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.”

“The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.”

“The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.”

“Of all the things that are beyond my power, I value nothing more highly than to be allowed the honor of entering into bonds of friendship with people who sincerely love truth. For, of things beyond our power, I believe there is nothing in the world which we can love with tranquility except such men.”

“The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.”

“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 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.”

“I call him free who is led solely by reason.”

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

“Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.”

“Most of those who have written about the Affects, and men’s way of living, seem to treat, not of natural things, which follow the common laws of nature, but of things that are outside nature. Indeed they seem to conceive man in nature as a dominion within a dominion. For they believe that man disturbs, rather than follows, the order of nature, that he has absolute power over his actions, and that he is determined only by himself.”

“Those who wish to seek out the cause of miracles and to understand the things of nature as philosophers, and not to stare at them in astonishment like fools, are soon considered heretical and impious, and proclaimed as such by those whom the mob adores as the interpreters of nature and the gods. For these men know that, once ignorance is put aside, that wonderment would be taken away, which is the only means by which their authority is preserved.”

“I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.”

“Nothing exists from whose nature some effect does not follow.”