Baruch Spinoza was one of the great philosophers of modernity. His thought had a great influence on Western thought and, more specifically, on the way his contemporaries began to interpret reality. To go over the most famous phrases of Baruch Spinoza is to constantly come across brilliant reflections on the most varied subjects.

Best of Baruch Spinoza’s quotes

Below you can find a selection of phrases by Baruch Spinoza to better understand how this reference of philosophy thought.

If, according to what the apostle says in 2 Corinthians 3:3, they have in themselves the letter of God, written not with ink but with the spirit of God, and not on tables of stone but on the fleshly tables of the heart, let them cease to worship the letter and to be so concerned about it.

A criticism of the lack of coherence of many Christian groups.

2. Our method of interpreting writing is the best. For, since the ultimate authority for interpreting scripture is in the hands of each individual, the standard of interpretation should be nothing but natural light, common to all, and not a light superior to nature or any external authority.

The philosopher emphasized what all people have in common when it comes to interpreting ambiguity.

3. The great secret of the monarchical regime and its greatest interest is to keep men deceived and to disguise, under the specious name of religion, the fear with which they want to be controlled, so that they fight for their slavery, as if it were their salvation, and consider it not an ignominy, but the highest honor, to give their blood and soul for the pride of one man.

A reflection on the monarchy in the form of a harsh criticism.

4. The natural law of each man is therefore not determined by sound reason, but by desire and power.

What we want defines us more than the logic we use to achieve it.

5. If it were as easy to rule over souls (animus) as over languages, everyone would reign with security and no state would be violent, since everyone would live according to the opinion of those who rule and only according to their decision would they judge what is true or false, good or bad, equitable or iniquitous.

A sentence by Baruch Spinoza that talks about his ontology.

6. If no one can renounce his freedom to express his opinion and think what he wishes, but each one is, by the supreme right of nature, master of his own thoughts, it follows that it can never be attempted in a state, without condemning oneself to an outright failure, that men should speak only as prescribed by the supreme powers, even if they have different and even contrary opinions.

The fact that each person makes their own decisions and creates a different flow of thought in itself makes it impossible to dominate their opinions.

7. By law and institution of nature I understand nothing other than the rules of nature of each individual, according to which we conceive that each being is naturally determined to exist and act in a precise way.

Individuals are part of the whole of nature.

8. In order to get rid of this mob, to free our minds from the prejudices of theologians, and not to recklessly embrace men’s inventions as if they were divine doctrines, we must approach the true method of interpreting Scripture and discuss it thoroughly; for, if we do not know it, we cannot know with certainty what Scripture or the Holy Spirit wants to teach. In short, the method of interpreting Scripture is not different from the method of interpreting nature, but fully agrees with it.

Spinoza, son of the Renaissance, wanted to free the knowledge of the dogmas that governed philosophy during the Middle Ages , including those referring to the biblical scriptures.

9. Those who stand out most for their imagination have fewer skills for purely intellectual knowledge.

For this thinker, imagination is a diffuse form of thought that does not fit into purely intellectual activity.

10 Those who stand out for their intelligence and cultivate it to the fullest have the power to imagine more moderate and more controlled, as if they were holding it in check so that it does not become confused with understanding.

A sentence by Spinoza related to the previous one.

11. Everything we do must aim at progress and improvement.

This reflection shows their faith in progress and advancement.

12. He who seeks to determine everything by laws will rather provoke the vices, which will correct them. What cannot be forbidden must be permitted, even though some harm may often follow from it. How many evils, indeed, do not come from luxury, envy, greed, drunkenness, and the like? And yet they are tolerated because they cannot be avoided by the prohibition of laws, even if they are really vices.

A reflection that challenges the logic of the most authoritarian mentalities.

13. The more concurrent causes there are, the greater is the affection.

A reflection on certain types of psychological phenomena.

14. The greatest of all imperfections is not to exist.

A phrase that recalls the ontological argument of St. Anselm.

15. In any case, it is not weapons that win out, but love and generosity.

Emotions have a more powerful impact on people than weapons.

16. The academies that are formed at the expense of the State are instituted not so much to cultivate minds as to embrace them.

A paradox: people can be taught to limit their abilities and their freedom to think.

17. To enjoy the pleasures in the just measure that is sufficient to protect health.

A recommendation that shows the dangers of excesses.

18. The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things.

Spinioza believed in an equivalence between the spiritual and material worlds.

19. Sin cannot be conceived in a natural state, but only in a civil state, where it is decreed by common consent what is good or bad.

In this way, Spinoza characterized sin as a social construct.

20. And of all the ideas, which each one has, we make a whole, or, what is the same, an entity of reason, which we call understanding.

Our understanding is a broad category that encompasses all the ideas we have access to.

21. The same thing can be at the same time good, bad, and indifferent. For example, music is good for melancholy, bad for those in mourning, and neither good nor bad for the deaf.

Reality has several facets.

22. I also know that it is as impossible for the common people to free themselves from superstition as from fear.

There are certain patterns of thinking and feeling that make us fall into them constantly.

23. Anything that is contrary to nature is also contrary to reason, and anything that is contrary to reason is absurd.

A logical derivation on the unnatural.

24. Freedom of judgment must be granted, since it is a virtue and cannot be oppressed.

About the psychological properties of people.

25. Nevertheless, even though natural science is divine, those who propagate it cannot be called prophets, since what they teach can be perceived and accepted by other men as well with equal certainty and dignity, and not by simple faith.

A curious distinction that was important in Spinoza’s time, although not so important today.

26. But suppose that this freedom is oppressed, and that it is possible to subdue men to such an extent that they dare not speak without the permission of the supreme powers. This will never make them think anything other than what they want.

About the absurdity of trying to regulate thoughts.

27. Men are generally of such a kind that they bear nothing less patiently than to have for a crime opinions that they believe to be true.

About the relative truth held in opinions, and the debates that this clash of ideas raises.

28. Both the prince and the whole army could not be more attracted to war than to peace. For the army was, as we have said, made up only of citizens, and it was therefore the same men who administered both war and peace. Hence, whoever was a soldier in the camp was a citizen in the forum, and whoever was a chief in the camp was a prince in the city. No one, therefore, could desire war for war’s sake, but for peace’s sake and to defend freedom.

Spinoza reflects on the motivations that led people to war.

29. The most violent State will therefore be the one in which each person is denied the freedom to say and teach what he thinks; and it will be, instead, the moderate one in which the same freedom is granted to all.

Another of Spinoza’s reflections on the law.

30. Just as men have been accustomed to call divine that science which surpasses human capacity, so have they called divine work or the work of God that whose cause is ignored by the vulgar.

Knowledge is distributed differently by social strata.

31. The common people, in fact, believe that the power and providence of God are never so evident as when they see something unusual happen in nature that is contrary to the opinion they have received about it, especially if it is for their own benefit and comfort.

About the kind of facts that stimulate the attribution of a work to God.

32. The common people call the unusual works of nature miracles or works of God; and, partly out of devotion, partly out of a desire to oppose those who cultivate the natural sciences, they glory in ignoring natural causes and want to hear only what they ignore and therefore what they admire most.

A paradox: that whose explanation is unknown may arouse more interest in the case of ignorance than that which is known.

33. That object which is destined for the practice of piety and religion is called sacred and divine, and it will be sacred only as long as men make a religious use of it. If they cease to be pious, ipso facto he too will cease to be sacred; and, if they dedicate it to the accomplishment of ungodly things, it will become unclean and profane just as it was sacred before.

Even sacred objects are sacred in a way relative to what is done with them by social consensus.

34. Scripture usually paints God in the image of man and attributes to him soul, spirit, affections and even body and breath, because of the weak intelligence of the vulgar.

Spinoza believed that we limit the conception of God so that it reaches the masses.

35. If you don’t want to repeat the past, study it.

An interesting aphorism about the importance of knowing the past, individual or collective.

36. There is nothing of which the nature does not follow some effect.

Everything in nature is connected through cause and effect.

37. That a finite understanding cannot understand anything by itself, unless it is determined by something outside.

Another of Spinoza’s logic-based reflections.

38. The most important activity that a human being can achieve is to learn in order to understand, because to understand is to be free.

An opinion very much in the line of other well known philosophers , like for example Plato.

  • You may be interested in: “Plato’s theory of ideas”

39. The cause that brings forth, preserves, and fosters superstition is, therefore, fear.

Spinoza placed the origin of superstitions in this emotion.

40. I have been careful not to make fun of human actions, not to deplore or detest them, but to understand them.

A declaration of intent by this thinker.

41. Men deceive themselves by believing themselves to be free; and the reason for this opinion is that they are aware of their actions, but ignore the causes because they are determined; therefore, what constitutes their idea of freedom, is that they know no cause of their actions.

Ignorance makes us think we’re free.

42. He who repents of what he has done is doubly miserable.

An opinion on repentance as loss.

43. That which is in itself and is conceived by itself; that is to say, that whose concept does not need the concept of anything else, from which it must be formed.

A definition of what exists in itself.

We have said that the soul is an idea, that it exists in the thinking thing, and that it proceeds from the existence of a thing that exists in nature.

Once, emphasizing the connection between the natural and the spiritual.

45. Everything that men decide for their own welfare is not meant to be for the welfare of all nature, but rather, on the contrary, it may be for the destruction of many other things.

The interests of human beings do not necessarily include respect for the other elements of nature.

46. By God I mean an absolutely infinite being, that is to say, a substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses an eternal and infinite essence.

A brief definition of what Spinoza thought God was.

47. Only a grim and sad superstition can forbid delight.

In defence of pleasure.

48. The greatest pride, and the greatest abjection, is the greatest ignorance of self.

A curious paradox.

49. Many philosophers have believed that outside the small field of the globe, where they are, there is no other, since they do not observe it.

A criticism of those who do not think beyond their references.

50. Most of the mistakes are simply that we do not apply the names to things correctly.

An idea that centuries later was rescued by analytical philosophers.

51. Society is extremely useful and equally necessary, not only to live in security against enemies, but also to have an abundance of many things; for unless men are willing to cooperate with one another, they will lack art and time to sustain and preserve themselves as best they can.

A justification for the existence of society.

52. Flattery also begets concord, but through the repugnant vice of servility, or perfidy.

There are different paths to the same behavior patterns.

53. The proud, who wish to be first, but are not, are those who most easily fall into the nets of adulation.

Another of Baruch Spinoza’s phrases in which he generalizes to a group of the population.

54. If man has an idea of God, God must formally exist.

At least on some plane of reality, God exists.

55. That which is not loved, never provokes struggle, nor sadness, nor laziness, nor envy, if another possesses it, nor fear, nor hatred, nor, in a word, any interior commotion.

Love mobilizes us , for better and for worse.

56. Only that which exists by the needs of its own nature is free, and it is influenced in its actions only by itself.

You can only be free if you are disconnected from the rest.

57. True human freedom has to do with strength, that is, with firmness and generosity.

A portrait of the characteristics that make man freer.

58. The search for honor and wealth also distracts the mind, and not a little, especially when it is sought for itself, for then it is considered the greatest good.

That which is seen as a sign of power and wealth can divert us from our most significant projects.

59. The purpose of the ceremonies was, therefore, this: that men should do nothing by their own decision, but everything by the command of another, and that by their actions and considerations they should make it clear that they were not autonomous, but totally dependent on another.

The ceremonies regularize the behaviors.

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

Another of Spinoza’s aphorisms, this time linked to thoughts about death.

61. Perhaps someone thinks, however, that we thus make slaves of our subjects, because we believe that a slave is one who works for an order, and a free one who lives at will. But this is far from the truth, for, in reality, he who is driven by his appetites and is unable to see or do anything that is useful to him, is a slave to the fullest extent.

62. The human soul is apt to perceive many things, and the more apt it is, the more its body can be arranged.

On the flexibility of intellectual gifts .

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63. All things in nature are either things or actions. Now, good and evil are neither things nor actions. Therefore, good and evil do not exist in nature.

Good and bad are social constructs.

64. It is not obedience, but the end of the action, that makes one a slave. If the end of the action is not the utility of the agent himself, but of the one who commands, then the agent is a slave and useless to himself.

We were enslaved through inaction.