Baruch Spinoza

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.

If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.

Ambition is the immoderate desire for power.

For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.

Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.

Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.

Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.

Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.

Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men.

He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason.

Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.