Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza had a remarkable life. He was a Jewish-Dutch philosopher who had a tremendous scientific aptitude. The magnitude of which was not fully revealed until years after his death on 21 February 1677.
He came to be recognised as one of the great rationalists. He laid the groundwork for the 18th century Enlightenment. He applied rationalism to everything including the Bible so much so that his community issued cherem against him. The Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam shunned him. At the young age of just 23, he was ostracised and excluded by the Jewish society. His books were also amongst the Catholic Church’s Index of Forbidden Books.
However Spinoza developed a close relationship with the Collegiants, a Christian sect. There was never no evidence that Spinoza was ever baptised into Christianity but he kept his Latinised name of Benedict Spinoza and was later buried in the churchyard of the Christian Nieuwe Kerk in The Hague.
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All excellent things are as difficult as they are rare.
– Baruch Spinoza
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“Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare.”
~Baruch Spinoza
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“I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of the peace.”
~Baruch Spinoza
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“If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.”
~Baruch Spinoza
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The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent than they have to speak.
~Spinoza
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There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.
~Baruch Spinoza