A quotes list created by Lee Sonogan
A man of the 16th century who was one of the great thinkers of early enlightenment times. Highly intelligent for many notable concepts, he was also spiritual defining “God” as a singular self-subsistent Substance, with both matter and thought being attributes of such. That meaning that he is an agnostic atheist resonates with me a lot. Then there is ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics worthy of any other quotes list that I have ever made.
- “The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.” ― Baruch Spinoza
- “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.” ― Spinoza
- “I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of the peace.” ― Baruch Spinoza
- “If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.” ― Baruch Spinoza
- “I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.” ― Baruch Spinoza
- “The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.” ― Spinoza
- “Peace is not the absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition of benevolence, confidence, justice.” ― Baruch Spinoza
- “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.” ― Baruch De Spinoza,
- “When a man is prey to his emotions, he is not his own master.” ― Benedict de Spinoza
- “Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.” ― Baruch Spinoza
- “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.” ― Baruch Spinoza
- “In so far as the mind sees things in their eternal aspect, it participates in eternity.” ― Spinoza
- “The greatest secret of monarchic rule…is to keep men deceived and to cloak in the specious name of religion the fear by which they must be checked, so that they will fight for slavery as they would for salvation, and will think it not shameful, but a most honorable achievement, to give their life and blood that one man may have a ground for boasting.” ― Baruch Spinoza
- “Pride is pleasure arising from a man’s thinking too highly of himself.” ― Baruch Spinoza
- “Further conceive, I beg, that a stone, while continuing in motion, should be capable of thinking and knowing, that it is endeavoring, as far as it can, to continue to move. Such a stone, being conscious merely of its own endeavor and not at all indifferent, would believe itself to be completely free, and would think that it continued in motion solely because of its own wish. This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined.” ― Spinoza
- “Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens. They who can treat secretly of the affairs of a nation have it absolutely under their authority; and as they plot against the enemy in time of war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace.” ― Baruch Spinoza
Hailing from Amsterdam working as a lens grinder for most of his life, his accumulation contributed to modern times. This guy is everything cool when researching processing history under at least these categories. All philosophers should influence you in one way or the other plus both combined. I need more people and understanding of the 16 century and relevant stuff before.
https://entertainmentcultureonline.com/