Quote #71

To give aid to every poor man is far beyond the power and the advantage of any private person. For the riches of any private person are wholly inadequate to meet such a call. Again, an individual man's resources of character are too limited for him to be able to make all men his friends. Hence providing for the poor is a duty, which falls on the State as a whole, and has regard only to the general advantage.

More from Baruch Spinoza

  1. It is before all things useful to men to associate their ways of life, to bind themselves together with such bonds as they think most fitte…
  2. Flattery begets harmony; but only by means of the vile offence of slavishness or treachery. None are more readily taken with flattery than …
  3. In so far as men are influenced by envy or any kind of hatred, one towards another, they are at variance, and are therefore to be feared in…
  4. In so far as we are intelligent beings, we cannot desire anything save that which is necessary, nor yield absolute acquiescence to anything…
  5. All our endeavours or desires so follow from the necessity of our nature, that they can be understood either through it alone, as their pro…
  6. An emotion, which is a passion, ceases to be a passion, as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea thereof.
  7. In refusing benefits caution must be used lest we seem to despise or to refuse them for fear of having to repay them in kind.
  8. The mind has greater power over the emotions and is less subject thereto, in so far as it understands all things as necessary.

All Baruch Spinoza quotes