Baruch Spinoza

Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.

Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.

God is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things.

Ambition is the immoderate desire for power.

To give aid to every poor man is far beyond the reach and power of every man. Care of the poor is incumbent on society as a whole.

Happiness is a virtue, not its reward.

All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.

One and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent, e.g., music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf.

Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.

Freedom is absolutely necessary for the progress in science and the liberal arts.

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.

Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.

For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.

Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.

Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.

There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.

We can always get along better by reason and love of truth than by worry of conscience and remorse. Harmful are these and evil.

There is no hope unmingled with fear and no fear unmingled with hope.