Baruch Spinoza

All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.

Self-complacency is pleasure accompanied by the idea of oneself as cause.

Pride is pleasure arising from a man's thinking too highly of himself.

Happiness is a virtue, not its reward.

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

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.

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.

Nothing in the universe is contingent, but all things are conditioned to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of the divine nature.

Nothing exists from whose nature some effect does not follow.

Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.

Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.

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.