Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself.
baruch Spinozaquotes
1632 - 1677
The Dutch-Jewish philosopher, Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), who later took the Latin name Benedictus when he was excommunicated from his synagogue, was respected by philosophers for being both rational and undogmatic.
He is considered a radical philosopher of the early modern era who helped usher in the Enlightenment. Spinoza firmly believed that virtue and happiness were only attained through reason, and not through passion or religious doctrine. While some have called him a “God-intoxicated man”, others say he was the first philosopher to make atheism into a philosophical system. Balancing somewhere in between religiosity and atheism, Spinoza argued in his pinnacle work, Ethics, that God is the sole infinite substance of the universe, and everything else is but a part of God. He attempted to demystify the universe and human beings in the light of logic.
Known for authoring one of the few books ever banned in the Netherlands, the publication of Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus in 1670 confirmed him as a heretic. Spinoza stated that the history of the Jews was no more extraordinary than any other people, the soul is not immortal, and he offered a thorough biblical critique blended with political philosophy. In the end, he argued that all people should have complete freedom of thought, and freedom of speech, without fear of persecution.
Spinoza died of consumption in 1677 without an heir, and with few possessions. His philosophical system, a combination of Jewish rationalism, Cartesian metaphysics and Stoicism is considered highly original and of lasting relevance.
Nature offers nothing that can be called this man’s rather than another’s; but under nature everything belongs to all.
The ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain by fear, nor to exact obedience, but to free every man from fear that he may live in all possible security… In fact the true aim of government is liberty.
Self-preservation is the primary and only foundation of virtue.
He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason.
Everyone endeavors as much as possible to make others love what he loves, and to hate what he hates… This effort to make everyone approve what we love or hate is in truth ambition, and so we see that each person by nature desires that other persons should live according to his way of thinking.
He who seeks to regulate everything by law is more likely to arouse vices than to reform them. It is best to grant what cannot be abolished, even though it be in itself harmful. How many evils spring from luxury, envy, avarice, drunkenness and the like, yet these are tolerated because they cannot be prevented by legal enactments.
Since love of God is the highest felicity and happiness of man, his final end and the aim of all his actions, it follows that he alone observes the divine law who is concerned to love God not from fear of punishment nor love of something else, such as pleasure, fame, ect., but from the single fact that he knows God, or that he knows that the knowledge and love of God is the highest good.
The supreme mystery of despotism, its prop and stay, is to keep men in a state of deception, and with the specious title of religion to cloak the fear by which they must be held in check, so that they will fight for their servitude as if for salvation.
God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things.