Spinoza, Baruch

"Greed and ambition have led to the downfall of empires."

"Art is the highest means of elevating human existence."

"The more the mind is capable of understanding all things as necessary, the greater is its power."

"External circumstances cannot affect the tranquility of the truly wise."

"Those who are governed by hope live in fear."

"Men are born, not for liberty, but to be led."

"Nature is a unified whole, with infinite modes and attributes."

"Passive emotions are passions; active emotions are actions."

"The knowledge of God is the mind's greatest happiness."

"Time is the measure of existence in relation to motion and rest."

"Virtue is power, and vice is the privation of power."

"We suffer in so far as we are a part of nature which cannot be expressed adequately through our individual nature alone."

"Diversity is the proof of God's existence."

"The truly free man is he whose life is determined by his own nature and not by external causes."

"Friendship founded on utility is dissolute."

"Every individual strives, to the best of his ability, to continue to exist."

"Anger is desire joined with the idea of pain."

"The mind perceives things under the aspect of eternity."

"All determination is negation."

"Peace comes from understanding necessity."

"To live is to persist in one's being through activity."

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

"The body cannot determine the mind to think."

"Power is the fundamental principle of all existence."

"Beauty results from the understanding of necessity."

"God is infinite and perfect; therefore all substance is infinite and perfect."

"The mind is eternal in so far as it understands."

"Existence precedes essence and determines all possibility."

"Envy springs from joy joined with sadness."

"The more perfect a thing is, the more it is capable of action and the less it is capable of suffering."