Baruch Spinoza Quotes

The order of nature [is] that individual happiness shall be inseparable from the practice of virtue.

Self-interest, or rather self-love, or egoism, has been more plausibly substituted as the basis of morality.

Virtue is nothing else than right reason

The amiable is a duty most certainly, but must not be exercised at the expense of any of the virtues. He who seeks to do the amiable always, can only be successful at the frequent expense of his manhood.

A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong - acting the part of a good man or of a bad.

We have next to consider the formal definition of virtue.

There must be in prudence also some master virtue.

Morality can muddle mystical understanding and virtue is only necessary in so far as it favours success. All wisdom must be encompassed in order to achieve enlightenment.

Is not virtue a negation of becoming?

One ought to be just before one is generous

Take the case of just actions; just punishments and chastisements do indeed spring from a good principle, but they are good only because we cannot do without them - it would be better that neither individuals nor states should need anything of the sort - but actions which aim at honor and advantage are absolutely the best. The conditional action is only the choice of a lesser evil; whereas these are the foundation and creation of good. A good man may make the best even of poverty and disease, and the other ills of life.

To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them.

There is but on virtue--the eternal sacrifice of self.

It still remains true that no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous.

Subordination to morality can be slavish or vain or self- interested or resigned or gloomily enthusiastic or thoughtless or an act of despair, just as subordination to a prince can be: in itself it is nothing moral.

The Good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue, or if there be several human excellences or virtues, in conformity with the best and most perfect among them.

The virtuous man is driven by responsibility, the non-virtuous man is driven by profit.

...virtue is not merely a state in conformity with the right principle, but one that implies the right principle; and the right principle in moral conduct is prudence.

The absence of vices adds so little to the sum of one's virtues.

There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.

All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.

The end of all moral speculations is to teach us our duty; and, by proper representations of the deformity of vice and beauty of virtue, beget correspondent habits, and engage us to avoid the one, and embrace the other.

The consideration that human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected will always continue to prompt me to promote the former by inculcating the practice of the latter.

Be in general virtuous, and you will be happy. At least, you will by such conduct, stand the best chance for such consequences.

No man of honor, as the word is usually understood, did ever pretend that his honor obliged him to be chaste or temperate, to pay his creditors, to be useful to his country, to do good to mankind, to endeavor to be wise or learned, to regard his word, his promise, or his oath.