Baruch Spinoza

"Joy is a man's passage from a lesser to a greater perfection."

"God is infinite substance consisting of infinite attributes."

"We are determined in our existence and action by external causes."

"The human mind is a part of the infinite intellect of God."

"Despair is the pain arising from imagining something we love to be destroyed."

"In nature there is no good or evil; these are human inventions."

"The greatest good is pursued through the love of something eternal and infinite."

"A person is free when his thoughts and actions flow from his own nature."

"The mind can understand neither how nor why the body is affected."

"Love is joy accompanied by the idea of an external cause."

"Imagination is the lowest form of knowledge; reason is intermediate; intuition is highest."

"From the necessity of the divine nature there must follow infinite things in infinite ways."

"Life is the effort of the body to persist in its being."

"The perfection of all things is measured by their power of action."

"Those who understand the mind rightly understand that the mind is eternal."

"Sorrow is the transition to a lesser state of perfection."

"A thing which has no limits is infinite in its kind."

"The mind is composed of ideas that represent the body's conditions."

"Whoever has a true idea simultaneously knows that he has a true idea."

"External causes cannot determine the mind to think."

"Gratitude arises from the idea of joy in another caused by us."

"The more we are affected by external things, the less free we are."

"A mind that understands its own nature is empowered to act more."

"The human mind is eternal insofar as it understands things under the form of eternity."

"What increases the body's power of acting increases the mind's power of thinking."

"Reason shows us that nothing human is evil for a man while he is trying to live."

"The endeavor to exist is the primary and sole foundation of virtue."

"Pity is sorrow mixed with joy at someone's misfortune."

"A free man's life is lived under the guidance of reason alone."

"Nature acts through an infinite variety of ways following a single necessity."