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Baruch Spinoza on Valentine's Day

1632–1677 Netherlands

← All quotes by Baruch Spinoza

16 quotes

Hatred is increased by being reciprocated, and can on the other hand be destroyed by love.

Hatred which is completely vanquished by love passes into love: and love is thereupon greater than if hatred had not preceded it.

When we love a thing similar to ourselves, we endeavor, as far as we can, to bring about that it should love us in return.

The greater emotion with which we conceive a loved object to be affected toward us, the greater will be our complacency.

Minds are conquered not by arms, but by love and magnanimity.

Perfection and imperfection are names which do not differ much from the names beauty and ugliness.

All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.

On the Improvement of the Understanding (1662)

If anyone conceives that he is loved by another, and believes that he has given no cause for such love, he will love that other in return.

Love or hatred towards a thing, which we conceive to be free, must, other things being similar, be greater than if it were felt towards a thing acting by necessity.

Simply from the fact that we have regarded a thing with the emotion of pleasure or pain, though that thing be not the efficient cause of the emotion, we can either love or hate it.

...it follows that everyone endeavors, as far as possible, to cause others to love what he himself loves, and to hate what he himself hates...

If a man had begun to hate an object of his love, so that love is thoroughly destroyed, he will, causes being equal, regard it with more hatred than if he had never loved it, and his hatred will be in proportion to the strength of his former love.

If anyone conceives, that an object of his love joins itself to another with closer bonds of friendship than he himself has attained to, he will be affected with hatred towards the loved object and with envy towards his rival.

He who hates anyone will endeavor to do him an injury, unless he fears that a greater injury will thereby accrue to himself; on the other hand, he who loves anyone will, by the same law, seek to benefit him.

In so far as men are influenced by envy or any kind of hatred, one towards another, they are at variance, and are therefore to be feared in proportion, as they are more powerful than their fellows.
Yet minds are not conquered by force, but by love and high-mindedness.

If we conceive that anyone loves, desires, or hates anything which we ourselves love, desire, or hate, we shall thereupon regard the thing in question with more steadfast love, etc. On the contrary, if we think that anyone shrinks from something that we love, we shall undergo vacillation of the soul.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Baruch Spinoza (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.