Spinoza, Baruch

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

"He who has a true love of truth must be allowed to follow it freely, wherever it may lead."

"In so far as the mind understands all things as eternal, it participates in eternity."

"The more you depend on forces outside yourself, the more enslaved you are."

"Determination is nothing but desire."

"Each thing insofar as it is capable of being aided by external causes has the faculty of preserving itself in being."

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

"Fear cannot coexist with hope; they are opposites in the human heart."

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

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

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

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

"Human bondage and human freedom are opposites, like slavery and liberty."

"Pleasure itself is a good thing, but not all pleasures are to be desired equally."

"Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does the human soul when deprived of purpose."

"The greatest power of the mind is to order and link together the images of things."

"To be determined is to be alive; to be undetermined is to be dead."

"All things that are, are in God, and all things that happen happen through God's laws."

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

"In the intellectual love of God, the human mind participates in the very blessedness of God."

"The more perfection a thing has, the more it acts and the less it is acted upon."

"To make men free is the beginning of all justice."

"No one can hate God, because no one can be harmed by God."

"The essences of singular things are conceived through the eternal essence of God."

"Music is the pleasure the human mind experiences from counting."

"He who seeks neither pain nor pleasure is already halfway to wisdom."

"Imagination is the lowest form of knowledge, but it is the beginning of all understanding."

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

"The greatest good of those who pursue virtue is common to all, and all may equally rejoice in it."

"Active emotions are those that arise from one's own inner nature and determination."