Baruch Spinoza Mind Quotations

After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else: whether, in fact, there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness.

As 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 fruits.

Man can, indeed, act contrarily to the decrees of God, as far as they have been written like laws in the minds of ourselves or the prophets, but against that eternal decree of God, which is written in universal nature, and has regard to the course of nature as a whole, he can do nothing.

In the mind there is no absolute or free will; but the mind is determined to wish this or that by a cause, which has also been determined by another cause, and this last by another cause, and so on to infinity.

He that can carp in the most eloquent or acute manner at the weakness of the human mind is held by his fellows as almost divine.

The greatest good is the knowledge of the union which the mind has with the whole nature.

The eternal wisdom of God ... has shown itself forth in all things, but chiefly in the mind of man, and most of all in Jesus Christ.

The things...are esteemed as the greatest good of all...can be reduced to these three headings: to wit, Riches, Fame, and Pleasure. With these three the mind is so engrossed that it cannot scarcely think of any other good.

To comprehend an idea, a person must simultaneously accept it as true. Conscious analysis - which, depending on the idea, may occur almost immediately or with considerable effort - allows the mind to reject what it intially accepted as fact.

Whatever increases, decreases, limits or extends the body's power of action, increases decreases, limits, or extends the mind's power of action. And whatever increases, decreases, limits, or extends the mind's power of action, also increases, decreases, limits, or extends the body's power of action.

In the mind there is no absolute or free will.

The mind can only imagine anything, or remember what is past, while the body endures.

. . . to know the order of nature, and regard the universe as orderly is the highest function of the mind.

The less the mind understands and the more things it perceives, the greater its power of feigning is; and the more things it understands, the more that power is diminished.

I saw that all things I feared, and which feared me, had nothing good or bad in them save insofar as the mind was affected by them.

The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed along with the body, but something of it remains, which is eternal.

In so far as the mind sees things in their eternal aspect, it participates in eternity.

The mind has greater power over the emotions, and is less subject thereto, insofar as it understands all things to be necessary.

Minds are not conquered by force, but by love and high-mindedness.