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.
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.
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.
There can be no hope without fear, and no fear without hope.
Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.
Pride is pleasure arising from a man’s thinking too highly of himself.
The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.
Nothing in nature is by chance… Something appears to be chance only because of our lack of knowledge.
In so far as the mind sees things in their eternal aspect, it participates in eternity.
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.
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.