“The more you struggle to live, the less you live. Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing. Instead, surrender to what is real within you, for that alone is sure....you are above everything distressing.”

Dutch Republic philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, 17th century

Baruch Spinoza, also known by the Latin name Benedictus de Spinoza, was a Dutch Republic philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin who lived in the 17th century. He is known as a forerunner of the Enlightenment and as one of the most important and radical thinkers of the early modern period. Spinoza helped shape modern biblical criticism, 17th-century rationalism, and Dutch intellectual culture. His thought was influenced by Stoicism, Thomas Hobbes, René Descartes, and heterodox Christians, and he became a leading philosopher of the Dutch Golden Age.