Baruck Spinoza

I have laboured carefully, not to mock, lament, or execrate human actions, but to understand them.

The true aim of government is liberty.

We must take care not to admit as true anything, which is only probable. For when one falsity has been let in, infinite others follow . . .

We cannot infer that because sciences of things divine and human are full of controversies and quarrels, therefore their whole subject-matter is uncertain . . .

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.

Freedom is absolutely necessary for the progress in science and the liberal arts.

I do not presume that I have found the best philosophy, I know that I understand the true philosophy.

Men's habits of mind differ, so that some more readily embrace one form of faith, some another, for what moves one to pray may move another to scoff, I conclude . . . that everyone should be free to choose for himself the foundations of his creed, and that faith should be judged only by its fruit . . .

The multitude always strains after rarities and exceptions, and thinks little of the gifts of nature; so that, when prophecy is talked of, ordinary knowledge is not supposed to be included . . . Nothing is forbidden by the law of nature, except what is beyond everyone's power.