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A definition, if it is to be called perfect, must explain the inmost essence of a thing, and must take care not to substitute for this any of its properties.

— Baruch Spinoza On the Improvement of the Understanding (1662)

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Philosophy

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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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

Robert Anton Wilson

Every morning
I shall concern myself anew about the boundary
Between the love-deed-Yes and the power-deed-No
And pressing forward honor reality.

Martin Buber Power and Love (1926)

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended.

John C. Lilly The Human Biocomputer (1974)

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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.