Spinoza

"Literature records the various ways humans have attempted to understand themselves."

"Technology extends human power only if it increases our understanding and self-determination."

"The mind's duration is infinite in so far as it understands things under the aspect of eternity."

"Conflict between people arises from inadequate ideas about their common interests."

"Solitude is not loneliness but the freedom to think without external constraint."

"The love of freedom is rooted in the love of understanding."

"All knowledge that does not lead to greater self-understanding is incomplete."

"Existence precedes essence, and essence is nothing but the striving to continue existing."

"The most powerful human being is one who understands the causes of their own determination."

"Joy is the increase in our power of thinking and acting simultaneously."

"To understand God is to understand that all things follow from necessity, not caprice."

"The mind that truly knows itself knows it is part of the infinite mind of nature."

"Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of understanding."

"Every effect has a cause, and understanding causes is understanding reality."

"The ethical person is not virtuous from fear of punishment but from understanding of what perfects us."

"Imagination is the lowest form of knowledge; intuitive science is the highest."

"To love another is to increase one's own power of thinking and acting."

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

"He who has a true knowledge of himself knows that he can do nothing without God's grace."

"Nature has not any preferential right of existence or action as compared with other beings."

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

"Sadness is a transition to a lesser state of perfection."

"We are determined to do a thing when we are acting from a cause that is external to ourselves."

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

"Desire is the very essence of man."

"What increases the power of acting in the body increases the power of thinking in the mind."

"Freedom is not the absence of necessity, but the understanding of necessity."

"In so far as the mind understands all things as necessary, it has a certain power of determining its feelings."

"No thing can be destroyed except by an external cause."

"The human being is a finite mode of the infinite substance."