Baruch Spinoza Quotes

In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth. A man would perish of hunger and thirst, if he refused to eat or drink, till he had obtained positive proof that food and drink would be good for him. But in philosophic reflection this is not so. On the contrary, we must take care not to admit as true anything, which is only probable. For when one falsity has been let in, infinite others follow.

Even if all parts of a problem seem to fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, one has to remember that the probable need not necessarily be the truth and the truth not always probable.

The same principles which at first view lead to skepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common sense.

When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.

We cannot infer that because sciences of things divine and human are full of controversies and quarrels, therefore their whole subject-matter is uncertain ; for there have been many persons so enamoured of contradiction, as to turn into ridicule geometrical axioms.

All reasoning ends in an appeal to self-evidence.

Logic is the foundation of the certainty of all the knowledge we acquire.

A train of thought is never false. The falsehood lies deep in the necessities of existence.

I'm not religious, I'm not romantic and I live purely by logic. I make every decision by logic and sometimes that leads me to the right and sometimes to the wrong decision.

Logic works, metaphysics contemplates.

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

I am aware that a philosopher's ideas are not subject to the judgment of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavour to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God.

To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one's thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one's mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality.

Reasoning draws a conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience.

Whoever does not philosophize for the sake of philosophy, but rather uses philosophy as a means, is a sophist.

But I don't think I have any particular talent for prediction, because when you have three or four elements in hand, you don't have to be a genius to reach certain conclusions.

Mathematics takes us into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual word, but every possible word, must conform.

We must never assume that which is incapable of proof.

Logic is not a body of doctrine, but a mirror-image of the world. Logic is transcendental.

Logic must look after itself. In a certain sense, we cannot make mistakes in logic.

Philosophy is easier than politics.

Logic, it is true, must yield to history.

Ignorance never settles a question.

Do I appear to you to have come to a wrong decision, if I devote that time to philosophy, which I otherwise should have spent at the loom?

Knowledge is justified belief.