Laws which can be broken without any wrong to one's neighbor are a laughing-stock; and such laws, instead … - Baruch Spinoza

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The laws of history tell us that only when the old is gone can the new take its place.

Baruch Spinoza

Laws which can be broken without any wrong to one's neighbor are a laughing-stock; and such laws, instead of restraining the appetites and lusts of mankind, serve rather to heighten them. Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata [we always resist prohibitions, and yearn for what is denied us].

Broken, Laughing, Law, Restraining, Serve, Yearn

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Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak. But experience more than sufficiently teaches that men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more easily than their words.

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Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men's natural abilities as to restrain them.

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Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.

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The supreme mystery of despotism, its prop and stay, is to keep men in a state of deception, and with the specious title of religion to cloak the fear by which they must be held in check, so that they will fight for their servitude as if for salvation.

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I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.

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