To an envious man nothing is more delightful than another’s misfortune, and nothing more painful than another’s success.
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) Dutch philosopher
“Man’s Loves and Hates,” Ethics (1677) [tr. D. Runes (1957)]
Quotations by:
Spinoza, Baruch
All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) Dutch philosopher
“On the Improvement of the Understanding” Para. 9 (1662)
Tractatus de intellectus emendatione. Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1016
What Paul says about Peter tells us more about Paul than it does about Peter.
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) Dutch philosopher
(Attributed)
(Source)
Quoted by Erich Fromm, Psychoanalysis and Religion, 3 (1950).
Things could not have been brought into being by God in any manner or in any order different from that which has in fact obtained.
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) Dutch philosopher
Ethics, Bk. I, Prop. Xxxiii, “On the Improvement of the Understanding, the Ethics, and Correspondence”
trans. by R.H.M. Elwes (1955).
Under the guidance of reason, we should pursue the greater of two goods, and the lesser of two evils.
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) Dutch philosopher
Ethics, “Reason and Desire” (1677) [tr. Runes (1957)]
It therefore comes to pass that everyone is fond of relating his own exploits and displaying the strength both of his body and his mind, and that men are on this account a nuisance one to the other.
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) Dutch philosopher
Ethics, Part 3 (1677)
How would it be possible, if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labour be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) Dutch philosopher
Ethics, Part 5 “Of the Power of the Understanding, or of Human Freedom”, Prop. 42, note (1677)
(Source)
I have often wondered, that persons who make a boast of professing the Christian religion, namely, love, joy, peace, temperance, and charity to all men, should quarrel with such rancorous animosity, and display daily towards one another such bitter hatred, that this, rather than the virtues they claim, is the readiest criterion of their faith.
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) Dutch philosopher
Theological-Political Treatise [Tractatus Theologico-Politicus], Part 1, Preface, sec. 23 (1670)
(Source)
… I believe that, if a triangle could speak, it would say, in like manner, that God is eminently triangular, while a circle would say that the divine nature is eminently circular. Thus each would ascribe to God its own attributes, would assume itself to be like God, and look on everything else as ill-shaped.
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) Dutch philosopher
Letter to Hugo Boxel (1674) (Letter 60, Para. 4)
Source: http://home.earthlink.net/~tneff/let6056.htm