I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.
Sedulo curavi, humanas actiones non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere.
Philosophers
Benedictus de Spinoza
Born in Amsterdam in 1632, Baruch de Spinoza was a heretical philosopher who was excommunicated from the Jewish community and earned his living grinding lenses. In his masterwork Ethics, he used the geometric method to demonstrate the identity of God and Nature, establishing himself — alongside Descartes and Leibniz — as one of the pillars of early-modern rationalism. His pantheistic worldview deeply impressed thinkers from Goethe to Einstein and quietly shaped the currents of modern thought.
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Benedictus de Spinoza's Other Quotes
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