Quotes from book
Ethics

Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order , usually known as the Ethics, is a philosophical treatise written in Latin by Benedict de Spinoza. It was written between 1664 and 1665 and was first published posthumously in 1677.


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“Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare.”

Source: Ethics

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“We feel and experience ourselves to be eternal.”
Sentimus experimurque, nos aeternos esse.

Part V, Prop. XXIII, Scholium
Variant: We feel and know that we are eternal.
Source: Ethics (1677)

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“Extreme pride or dejection indicates extreme ignorance of self.”
Maxima superbia vel abjectio est maxima sui ignorantia.

Part IV, Prop. LV
Ethics (1677)

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“God is the Immanent Cause of all things, never truly transcendent from them”
Deus est omnium rerum causa immanens, non vero transiens

Part I, Prop. XVIII
Ethics (1677)

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“Needs must it be hard, since it is so seldom found. 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.”
Et sane arduum debet esse, quod adeo raro reperitur. Qui enim posset fieri, si salus in promptu esset et sine magno labore reperiri posset, ut ab omnibus fere negligeretur? Sed omnia praeclara tam difficilia, quam rara sunt.

Part V, Prop. XLII, Scholium
Ethics (1677)

Baruch Spinoza photo
Baruch Spinoza photo

“The order and connection of the thought is identical to with the order and connection of the things.”
Ordo et connexio idearum idem est ac ordo et connexio rerum

Part II, Prop. VII
Ethics (1677)

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“This endeavour to do a thing or leave it undone, solely in order to please men, we call ambition, especially when we so eagerly endeavour to please the vulgar, that we do or omit certain things to our own or another's hurt : in other cases it is generally called kindliness.”
Hic conatus aliquid agendi et etiam omittendi ea sola de causa ut hominibus placeamus, vocatur ambitio præsertim quando adeo impense vulgo placere conamur ut cum nostro aut alterius damno quædam agamus vel omittamus; alias humanitas appellari solet.

Part III, Prop. XXIX
Ethics (1677)

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“Human infirmity in moderating and checking the emotions I name bondage: for, when a man is a prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune: so much so, that he is often compelled, while seeing that which is better for him, to follow that which is worse.”
Humanam impotentiam in moderandis et coercendis affectibus servitutem voco; homo enim affectibus obnoxius sui juris non est sed fortunæ in cujus potestate ita est ut sæpe coactus sit quanquam meliora sibi videat, deteriora tamen sequi.

Part IV, Preface; translation by R. H. M. Elwes
Ethics (1677)

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“My purpose is to explain, not the meaning of words, but the nature of things.”
Meum institutum non est verborum significationem sed rerum naturam explicare

Ethics (1677)

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“…from the perspective of the eternal.”
sub specie aeternitatis

Part V, Prop. XXIII, Scholium
Ethics (1677)

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“A free man thinks of death least of all things; and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life.”
Homo liber de nulla re minus, quam de morte cogitat, et ejus sapientia non mortis, sed vitae meditatio est.

Part IV, Prop. LXVII
Ethics (1677)

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“Truth is a standard both of itself and of falsity”
veritas norma sui et falsi est

Part II, Prop. XLIII, Scholium
Ethics (1677)

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