311 Quotes by Baruch Spinoza

Desire is the very essence of man

It is not possible that we should remember that we existed before our body, for our can bear no trace of such existence, neither can eternity be defined in terms of time or have any relation to time. But notwithstanding, we feel and know that we are eternal.

The more we understand individual things, the more we understand God.

Measure, time and number are nothing but modes of thought or rather of imagination.

True knowledge of good and evil as we possess is merely abstract or general, and the judgment which we pass on the order of things and the connection of causes, with a view to determining what is good or bad for us in the present, is rather imaginary than real.

As though God had turned away from the wise, and written his decrees, not in the mind of man but in the entrails of beasts, or left them to be proclaimed by the inspiration and instinct of fools, madmen, and birds. Such is the unreason to which terror can drive mankind!

We can always get along better by reason and love of truth than by worry of conscience and remorse...we should strive to keep worry from our life.

Things could not have been brought into being by God in any manner or in any order different from that which has in fact obtained.

...The body is affected by the image of the thing, in the same way as if the thing were actually present.