Baruch Spinoza Quotes That Will Inspire You to Live Your Best Life

1. Don’t cry and don’t rage. Understand.

2. In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth. The Letters

3. It is the part of a wise man, I say, to refresh and restore himself in moderation with pleasant food and drink, with scents, with the beauty of green plants, with decoration, music, sports, the theater, and other things of this kind, which anyone can use without injury to another. Ethics

4. 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 Letters

5. After experience had taught me that all things which frequently take place in ordinary life are vain and futile, andwhen I saw that all the things I feared, and which feared me, had nothing good or bad in them save in so far as the mind was affected by them; I determined at last to inquire whetherthere was anything which might be truly good, and able to communicate its goodness, and by which the mind might be affected to the exclusion of all other things; I determined, I say, to inquire whether I might discover and attain thefaculty of enjoying throughout eternity continual supreme happiness..I could see the many advantages acquired from honor and riches, and that I should be debarred from acquiring these things if I wished seriously to investigate a new matter…But the more one possesses of either of them, the more the pleasure is increased, and the more one is in con-sequence encouraged to increase them; whereas if at any time our hope is frustrated, there arises in us the deepest pain. Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it wemust direct our lives in such a way as to please the fancy of men, avoiding what they dislike and seeking what pleasesthem. . .. But the love towards a thing eternal and infinite alone feeds the mind with a pleasure secure from all pain… The greatest good is the knowledge of the union which themind has with the whole of nature….The more the mind knows, the better it understands its forces and the order ofnature; the more it understands its forces or strength, the better it will be able to direct itself and lay down the rules for itself; and the more it understands the order of nature,the more easily it will be able to liberate itself from useless things; this is the whole method.

6. 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.

7. Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it. Ethics

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

9. I should attempt to treat human vice and folly geometrically... the passions of hatred, anger, envy, and so on, considered in themselves, follow from the necessity and efficacy of nature... I shall, therefore, treat the nature and strength of the emotion in exactly the same manner, as though I were concerned with lines, planes, and solids. Ethics

10. In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth. The Letters

11. Minds, however, are conquered not by arms, but by love and nobility. Ethics

12. The body itself, simply from the laws of its own nature, can do many things which its mind wonders at … it is in the mind’s power alone both to speak and to be silent and to do many other things which they therefore believe depend on the mind’s decision … if, on the other hand, the body is inactive, the mind is at the same time incapable of thinking Ethics

13. The good which every man, who follows after virtue, desires for himself he will also desire for other men... Ethics

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

15. Things which are accidentally the causes either of hope or fear are called good or evil omens.

16. whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived