Baruch Spinoza Quotes About Opinions

Quotes about: Opinions

• The most tyrannical of governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts.

  Baruch Spinoza

  Truth, Government, Political

• Laws which prescribe what everyone must believe, and forbid men to say or write anything against this or that opinion, are often passed to gratify, or rather to appease the anger of those who cannot abide independent minds.

  Baruch Spinoza

  Believe, Independent, Writing

• Laws directed against opinions affect the generous-minded rather than the wicked, and are adapted less for coercing criminals than for irritating the upright.

  Baruch Spinoza

  Law, Wicked, Criminals

• But if men would give heed to the nature of substance they would doubt less concerning the Proposition that Existence appertains to the nature of substance: rather they would reckon it an axiom above all others, and hold it among common opinions. For then by substance they would understand that which is in itself, and through itself is conceived, or rather that whose knowledge does not depend on the knowledge of any other thing.

  Baruch Spinoza

  Reality, Men, Giving

• Men are mistaken in thinking themselves free; their opinion is made up of consciousness of their own actions, and ignorance of the causes by which they are determined.

  Baruch Spinoza

  Ignorance, Men, Thinking

  Baruch Spinoza (1981). “Ethics”, p.70, Commodius Vicus

• He whose honor depends on the opinion of the mob must day by day strive with the greatest anxiety, act and scheme in order to retain his reputation. For the mob is varied and inconsistent, and therefore if a reputation is not carefully preserved it dies quickly.

  Baruch Spinoza

  Order, Anxiety, Honor

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