"I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of the peace."
— Benedictus de Spinoza

"There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope."
— Benedictus de Spinoza

"The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free."
— Benedictus de Spinoza

"Do not weep. Do not wax indignant. Understand."
— Benedictus de Spinoza

"Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare."
— Benedictus de Spinoza

"I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them."
— Benedictus de Spinoza

"I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion."
— Benedictus de Spinoza

"Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character."
— Benedictus de Spinoza

"The greatest secret of monarchic rule...is to keep men deceived and to cloak in the specious name of religion the fear by which they must be checked, so that they will fight for slavery as they would for salvation, and will think it not shameful, but a most honorable achievement, to give their life and blood that one man may have a ground for boasting."
— Benedictus de Spinoza

"In so far as the mind sees things in their eternal aspect, it participates in eternity."
— Benedictus de Spinoza (Spinoza in der europäischen Geistesgeschichte)

"Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many."
— Benedictus de Spinoza

"Pride is pleasure arising from a man's thinking too highly of himself."
— Benedictus de Spinoza

"Better that right counsels be known to enemies than that the evil secrets of tyrants should be concealed from the citizens. They who can treat secretly of the affairs of a nation have it absolutely under their authority; and as they plot against the enemy in time of war, so do they against the citizens in time of peace."
— Benedictus de Spinoza

"I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused."
— Benedictus de Spinoza

"The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue."
— Benedictus de Spinoza

"G-d is the indwelling and not the transient cause of all things."
— Benedictus de Spinoza

"Hatred is increased by being reciprocated, and can on the other hand be destroyed by love. Hatred which is completely vanquished by love, passes into love; and love is thereupon greater, than id hatred had not preceded it. "
— Benedictus de Spinoza

"There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope."
— Benedictus de Spinoza

"There can be no hope without fear, and no fear without hope."
— Benedictus de Spinoza

"The wise man, in so far as he is considered as such, is scarcely ever moved in his mind, but, being conscious by a certain eternal necessity of himself, of god, and of things, never ceases to be, and always enjoys true peace of soul."
— Benedictus de Spinoza

"Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand."
— Benedictus de Spinoza

"Der Endzweck des Staates ist [...] im Grund die Freiheit."
— Benedictus de Spinoza