The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.
Nothing exists from whose nature some effect does not follow.
- Topic: Action, Thinking
- Photo: Jeffrey Benjamin
More Quotes from Benedict Spinoza
The things which . . . 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.
Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.
Man is a social animal.
None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.
The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.
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Do not think that what is hard for you to master is humanly impossible; but if a thing is humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach.
The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
Vision without execution is hallucination.
I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived.
The power for creating a better future is contained in the present moment: You create a good future by creating a good present.
The great decisions of human life have as a rule far more to do with the instincts and other mysterious unconscious factors than with conscious will and well-meaning reasonableness.
One day we will learn that the heart can never be totally right when the head is totally wrong.
The world is a comedy to those that think, and a tragedy to those that feel.
The free flow of conflicting ideas and feelings is critical for creative thinking, for discovering new solutions no one individual would have come to on his own.
He who has so little knowledge of human natures as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.
It doesn't matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.
In this age, the man who dares to think for himself and to act independently does a service to his race.
Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition, is not only a waste of energy but the worst habit you could possibly have.
