Spinoza, Baruch

"Money is a tool for freedom, not its substitute."

"The secret to happiness is modest expectations."

"Humor is the recognition of incongruity in human affairs."

"The human body is composed of a great number of parts of diverse nature, each requiring continual varied replenishment."

"He who has a true love of truth must be allowed to pursue it freely."

"All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare."

"The greatest good is the knowledge of the union of the mind with the whole of nature."

"Nature is not prodigal, yet it is not stingy; it maintains a perfect economy."

"Hatred is increased by being reciprocated, and can on the other hand be destroyed by love."

"The mind's highest good is the knowledge of God; the mind's highest virtue is to know God."

"If we live according to reason, we live in obedience to natural law."

"Fear cannot exist where there is hope, nor hope where there is fear."

"A free man thinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom is a meditation on life, not on death."

"The individual thing is expressed through infinite attributes."

"All determination is negation."

"He who despises himself and yet desires that others should respect him is inconsistent."

"Human power is very limited and is infinitely surpassed by the power of external causes."

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

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

"He who loves God cannot endeavor that God should love him in return."

"Passive emotions are passive insofar as we are passive; active emotions are active insofar as we are active."

"The human mind can be of such a nature that the part which we have shown to perish with the body is of no account in relation to what remains."

"Desire is the very essence of man."

"The more joy increases, the more perfection increases; the more sadness increases, the more we decrease in perfection."

"He who has a firm resolve and strength of character will not be easily shaken by misfortune."

"Nature produces infinitely many things in infinite ways."

"Insofar as the mind understands all things as necessary, it has a certain power of affecting the emotions."

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

"Men are necessarily envious and hateful of one another insofar as they are considered merely as individuals."

"Compassion is pain, and therefore an evil in itself."