Baruch Spinoza

If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.

The mind has greater power over the emotions, and is less subject thereto, insofar as it understands all things to be necessary.

The highest endeavor of the mind, and the highest virtue, is to understand things by intuition.

Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself; neither do we rejoice therein, because we control our lusts, but contrariwise, because we rejoice therein, we are able to control our lusts.

Blessed are the weak who think that they are good because they have no claws.

All the objects pursued by the multitude not only bring no remedy that tends to preserve our being, but even act as hinderances, causing the death not seldom of those who possess them, and always of those who are possessed by them.

For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from the force of character.

Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.

God is a thing that thinks.

I saw that all things I feared, and which feared me, had nothing good or bad in them save insofar as the mind was affected by them.

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.