#ethics

“It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak. On Liberty”

“There are but few points in which the English, as a people, are entitled to the moral pre”

“That power should be exercised over any portion of mankind without any obligation of consulting them, is only tolerable while they are in an infantine, or a semi”

“The possession and the exercise of political, and among others of electoral, rights, is one of the chief instruments both of moral and of intellectual training for the popular mind; and all governments must be regarded as extremely imperfect, until every one who is required to obey the laws, has a voice, or the prospect of a voice, in their enactment and administration. Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform (1859), p. 22”

“Granted that any practice causes more pain to animals than it gives pleasure to man; is that practice moral or immoral? And if, exactly in proportion as human beings raise their heads out of the slough of selfishness, they do not with one voice answer 'immoral,' let the morality of the principle of utility be for ever condemned. Dr. Whewell on Moral Philosophy (1852), in Dissertations and Discussions: Political, Philosophical, and Historical , vol. 2, London: John W. Parker and son, 1859, p. 485”

“A Turk thinks, or used to think (for even Turks are wiser now”

“All students of man and society who possess that first requisite for so difficult a study, a due sense of its difficulties, are aware that the besetting danger is not so much of embracing falsehood for true, as of mistaking part of the truth for the whole. “Coleridge”. London and Westminster Review.”

“The principle itself of dogmatic religion, dogmatic morality, dogmatic philosophy, is what requires to be rooted out; not any particular manifestation of that principle. ¶ The very corner”

“The remedies for all our diseases will be discovered long after we are dead; and the world will be made a fit place to live in, after the death of most of those by whose exertions it will have been made so. It is to be hoped that those who live in those days will look back with sympathy to their known and unknown benefactors. Diary, April 15, 1854, in The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill , Toronto, 1988, vol. 27, p. 668”

“The Spirit of the Age, I”

“The ordinary surroundings of life which are esteemed by men (as their actions testify) to be the highest good, may be classed under the three heads”

“After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else: whether, in fact, there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness. I, 1”

“All the better; they do not force me to do anything that I would not have done of my own accord if I did not dread scandal. But since they want it that way, I enter gladly on the path that is opened to me, with the consolation that my departure will be more innocent than was the exodus of the early Hebrews from Egypt. Statement after his excommunication from Jewish society, attributed by Lucas, in The Oldest Biography of Spinoza (1970) by A. Wolf; also in Spinoza: A Life (1999) by Steven Nadler”

“Of all the things that are beyond my power, I value nothing more highly than to be allowed the honor of entering into bonds of friendship with people who sincerely love truth . For, of things beyond our power, I believe there is nothing in the world which we can love with tranquility except such men. Spinoza, Correspondence, 146, Letter xix”

“Nature is satisfied with little; and if she is, I am also. As quoted in The Story of Philosophy (1933) by Will Durant , p. 176”

“How I know that my philosophy is the best among all that have ever been taught in the world, or are being taught, or ever will be taught?”

“I make this chief distinction between religion and superstition , that the latter is founded on ignorance, the former on knowledge ; this, I take it, is the reason why Christians are distinguished from the rest of the world, not by faith , nor by charity , nor by the other fruits of the Holy Spirit, but solely by their opinions, inasmuch as they defend their cause, like everyone else, by miracles, that is by ignorance , which is the source of all malice; thus they turn a faith, which may be true, into superstition. Letter 21 (73) to Henry Oldenburg , November”

“If I had as clear an idea of ghosts, as I have of a triangle or a circle, I should not in the least hesitate to affirm that they had been created by God; but as the idea I possess of them is just like the ideas, which my imagination forms of harpies, gryphons, hydras, &c., I cannot consider them as anything but dreams, which differ from God as totally as that which is not differs from that which is. Letter to Hugo Boxel (October 1674) The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza (1891) Tr. R. H. M. Elwes, Vol. 2, Letter 58 (54).”

“This I know, that between finite and infinite there is no comparison; so that the difference between God and the greatest and most excellent created thing is no less than the difference between God and the least created thing. Letter to Hugo Boxel (October 1674) The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza (1891) Tr. R. H. M. Elwes, Vol. 2, Letter 58 (54).”

“Principles of Descartes”

“Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds, I am not a sacrifice on their altars.”

“And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: 'I.'”

“I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.”

“I am. I think. I will.”

“A moment or an eternity”

“The highest thing in a man is not his god. It's that in him which knows the reverence due a god. You are my highest reverence. Last Page”

“There is only one thing that matters and that we'll remember. The rest doesn't matter. I don't care what life is to be nor what it does to us. But it won't break us. Neither you nor me. That's our only weapon. That's the only banner we can hold against all those others around us. That's all we have to know about the future.”

“There is no such thing as duty. If you know that a thing is right, you want to do it. If you don't want to do it”

“Do you believe in God, Andrei? No. Neither do I. But that's a favorite question of mine. An upside”

“I hope you will understand my hesitation in writing to one whom I admire as the greatest representative of a philosophy to which I want to dedicate my whole life. Letter to H.L. Mencken July 28, 1934.”