Home > Work > The Ethics/Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect/Selected Letters
1 " 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. "
― Baruch Spinoza , The Ethics/Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect/Selected Letters
2 " In a state of nature nothing can be said to be just or unjust; this is so only in a civil state, where it is decided by common agreement what belongs to this or that man. "
3 " I realised that all the things which were the source and object of my anxiety held nothing of good or evil in themselves save in so far as the mind was influenced by them, "
4 " each will form universal images according to the conditioning of his body. "
5 " In so far as we understand, we can desire nothing but that which must be, nor, in an absolute sense, can we find contentment in anything but truth. "
6 " those who have more often regarded with admiration the stature of men will understand by the word ‘man’ an animal of upright stature, while those who are wont to regard a different aspect will form a different common image of man, such as that man is a laughing animal, a feather-less biped, or a rational animal. "
7 " in the case of the given numbers 1, 2, 3, everybody can see that the fourth proportional is 6, and all the more clearly because we infer in one single intuition the fourth number from the ratio we see the first number bears to the second. "
8 " He who exults in popular esteem has the daily burden of anxiously striving, acting and contriving to preserve his reputation. For the populace is fickle and inconstant, and unless a reputation is preserved it soon withers away. "
