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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.

— Baruch Spinoza

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More quotes by Baruch Spinoza

I do not presume that I have found the best philosophy, I know that I understand the true philosophy.

Nature is satisfied with little; and if she is, I am also.

The Story of Philosophy (1933)

All laws which can be broken without any injury to another, are counted but a laughing-stock, and are so far from bridling the desires and lusts of men, that on the contrary they stimulate them.

Political Treatise (1677)

A free man thinks of death least of all things; and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life.

Ethics (1677)

If slavery, barbarism and desolation are to be called peace, men can have no worse misfortune.

Political Treatise (1677)

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Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.

William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595)

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

Bertrand Russell Marriage and Morals (1929)

Not for the body, but for the heart; companion and company are needed.

Sanu Sharma

Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies,
And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.

Alexander Pope

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Baruch Spinoza (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.