Spinoza, Baruch

"The intellect's power increases with the clarity and distinctness of its ideas."

"Courage consists in the ability to persist despite difficulties."

"True happiness comes from understanding the necessity of all things."

"The mind determines the body to do something and the body determines the mind to think of something."

"All finite things are diminutions of infinite perfection."

"To understand why another acts as they do is the beginning of forgiveness."

"The person guided by fear acts from servility; the person guided by reason acts from freedom."

"Things are either determined by God's nature to exist and act, or they are not so determined."

"The more we understand, the less we blame; the less we understand, the more we blame."

"Time is not of the essence of things, but rather a mode of thinking."

"Perfection is merely reality considered under the aspect of a thing's power of acting."

"To desire without understanding is to be enslaved by one's own appetites."

"The joy that arises from understanding is the highest human emotion."

"Those who are slave to their passions see only the good in what pleases them."

"The human body is the most complex thing nature has produced."

"Virtue is power itself, insofar as the mind's power determines the body to those actions which follow from the mind's own nature."

"Nature is infinite in perfection and infinite in power."

"The mind is not determined by casual thoughts but by the necessity of understanding."

"Whatever perfects the body perfects the mind, for mind and body are one thing."

"He who truly loves God has no need to seek any reward from God."

"The essence of any individual thing involves a certain eternal and infinite expression."

"To be in love is to recognize oneself in another and both in something greater."

"Our awareness of God is the universe becoming conscious of itself."

"The more determined we are by our own nature, the freer and more powerful we become."

"Imagination shows things as they appear to be; reason shows them as they truly are."

"The joy that comes from virtue is the truest sign of living well."

"Those animated by reason will naturally love all that reason endorses."

"To understand ourselves is to understand our place in the infinite order of nature."

"False hope and superstition are chains that bind the ignorant."

"The contemplation of nature by the mind is itself a form of joy."