Baruch Spinoza Quotes

How would it be possible if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labor be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.

Character isn't inherited. One builds it daily by the way one thinks and acts, thought by thought, action by action. If one lets fear or hate or anger take possession of the mind, they become self-forged chains.

Affliction comes to us all, not to make us sad, but sober; not to make us sorry, but to make us wise; not to make us despondent, but by its darkness to refresh us as the night refreshes the day; not to impoverish, but to enrich us

You are searching for the magic key that will unlock the door to the source of power; and yet you have the key in your own hands, and you may use it the moment you learn to control your thoughts.

Some form of self-discipline is necessary to transmute material desires into spiritual aspirations.

You don't have to be kind. You have to be calm. Once you start showing that people can affect your emotions, then you obviously don't have that much power. If a stewardess can affect your emotional life, then you don't have any power in life and you just showed your whole hand.

Who then is free? The wise who can command his passions, who fears not want, nor death, nor chains, firmly resisting his appetites and despising the honors of the world, who relies wholly on himself, whose angular points of character have all been rounded off and polished.

Wise people may say what they will, but one passion is never cured by another.

It is not only by one's impulses that one achieves greatness, but also by patiently filing away the steel wall that separates what one feels from what one is capable of doing.

Emotions were like wild horses and it required wisdom to be able to control them

Today I will be the master of my emotions.

The weak are dominated by their ego, the wise dominate their ego, and the intelligent are in a constant struggle against their ego.

Self-discipline, although difficult, and not always easy while combating negative emotions, should be a defensive measure.

Self-awareness is a key to self-mastery

My third maxim was to try always to conquer myself rather than fortune, and to change my desires rather than the order of the world, and generally to accustom myself to believing that there is nothing entirely in our power except our thoughts, so that after we have done our best regarding things external to us, everything in which we do not succeed is for us absolutely impossible.

I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.

It seemed to Alabama that, reaching her goal, she would drive the devils that had driven her - that, in proving herself, she would achieve that peace which she imagined went only in surety of one’s self - that she would be able, through the medium of the dance, to command her emotions, to summon love or pity or happiness at will, having provided a channel through which they might flow. She drove herself mercilessly, and the summer dragged on.

Report followeth not all goodness, except difficulty and rarity be joined thereto.

Who, in the midst of just provocation to anger, instantly finds the fit word which settles all around him in silence is more than wise or just; he is, were he a beggar, of more than royal blood, he is of celestial descent.

He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.

Karma is the beginning of knowledge. Next is patience. Patience is very important. The strong are the patient ones, Anjin-san. patience means holding back your inclination to the seven emotions: hate, adoration, joy, anxiety, anger, grief, fear. If you don't give way to the seven, you're patient, then you'll soon understand all manner of things and be in harmony with Eternity.

It is worth remembering that the time of greatest gain in terms of wisdom and inner strength is often that of greatest difficulty.

Only during hard times do people come to understand how difficult it is to be master of their feelings and thoughts.

Whoever wishes to make progress in perfection should use particular diligence in not allowing himself to be led away by his passions, which destroy with one hand the spiritual edifice which is rising by the labors of the other. But to succeed well in this, resistance should be begun while the passions are yet weak; for after they are thoroughly rooted and grown up, there is scarcely any remedy.

If you set out to seek freedom, then learn above all things to govern your soul and your senses . . . only through discipline may a man learn to be free.