He whose honor depends on the opinion of the mob must day by day strive with the greatest anxiety, act and scheme in order to retain his reputation. For the mob is varied and inconsistent, and therefore if a reputation is not carefully preserved it dies quickly.
Pride is therefore pleasure arising from a man’s thinking too highly of himself.
- Topic: Pride, Self, Thinking
- Location: Glacier National Park
- 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.
The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.
Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak. But experience more than sufficiently teaches that men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues.
Man is a social animal.
More Quotes from Glacier National Park
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All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows he knows his course is wrong and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.
Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.
If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.
None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.
Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.
You will be as much value to others as you have been to yourself.
Almost every significant breakthrough is the result of a courageous break with traditional ways of thinking.
Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.
Nothing exists from whose nature some effect does not follow.
Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition, is not only a waste of energy but the worst habit you could possibly have.
Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.
It is a very great thing to be able to think as you like; but, after all, an important question remains: what you think.
Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man’s task.
I was in darkness, but I took three steps and found myself in paradise. The first step was a good thought, the second, a good word; and the third, a good deed.
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionately to their occupancy of your thoughts.
Drink does not drown care, but waters it, and makes it grow faster.