Baruck Spinoza II

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 the peace.

The more you struggle to live, the less you live. Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing. Instead, surrender to what is real within you, for that alone is sure....you are above everything distressing.

No matter how thin you slice it, there will always be two sides.

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

Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare.

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

The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.

There can be no hope without fear, and no fear without hope.

When a man is prey to his emotions, he is not his own master.