By Baruch Spinoza • Rationalist Metaphysics & Human Freedom
Demonstrated in geometric order, Spinoza's masterpiece identifies God and Nature (Deus sive Natura) and shows how understanding transforms passive bondage to emotion into intellectual love and freedom.
“I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.”
“All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.”
“Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.”
“Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.”
“The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.”
“Nature is satisfied with little; and if she is, I am also.”
“I have resolved to demonstrate by a certain and undoubted course of argument, or to deduce from the very condition of human nature, not what is new and unheard of, but only such things as agree best with practice.”
“Sentimus experimurque, nos aeternos esse.”
“I think the Ethics will have a permanent effect on me.”
“Maxima superbia vel abjectio est maxima sui ignorantia.”
“Deus est omnium rerum causa immanens, non vero transiens”
“There is no other philosophy than that of Spinoza.”
“Ordo et connexio idearum idem est ac ordo et connexio rerum”
“If I should name myself after anyone, then I know no one other better.”
“He who seeks equality between unequals seeks an absurdity.”
“The dominant feature in his character was his devotion to the pursuit of truth”
“Every philosopher has two philosophies: his own and Spinoza's.”
“Meum institutum non est verborum significationem sed rerum naturam explicare”
“[Spinoza] — A God-intoxicated man. [Original in German: Ein Gottbetrunkener Mensch.]”
“I pass, at length, to the third and perfectly absolute dominion, which we call democracy.”
“Spinoza: the absolute philosopher, whose Ethics is the foremost book on concepts.”
“Spinoza is the originator of speculative philosophy, Schelling its restorer, Hegel its perfecter.”
“Tota felicitas aut infelicitas in hoc solo sita est; videlicet in qualitate obiecti, cui adhaeremus amore.”
“Homo liber de nulla re minus, quam de morte cogitat, et ejus sapientia non mortis, sed vitae meditatio est.”
“[Spinoza] — the philosopher whom I trust most,... [Original in German: Der Philosoph, dem ich zumeist vertraue,...]”
“...Descartes who misled the whole chorus of modern philosophers, except Spinoza, by making them fall in love with themselves.”
“[Spinoza] — the deepest, most original thinker to emerge from our people from the end of the Bible to the birth of Einstein.”
“My ancestors Heraclitus, Empedocles, Spinoza, Goethe. [Original in German: meine Vorfahren Heraclit Empedocles Spinoza Goethe.]”