And now a few words from Spinoza......

“If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.” 

“The superstitious know how to reproach people for their vices better than they know how to teach them virtues, and they strive, not to guide men by reason, but to restrain them by fear, so that they flee the evil rather than love virtues. Such people aim only to make others as wretched as they themselves are, so it is no wonder that they are generally burdensome and hateful to men.”

“No matter how thin you slice it, there will always be two sides.”

“He who seeks to regulate everything by law is more likely to arouse vices than to reform them. It is best to grant what cannot be abolished, even though it be in itself harmful. How many evils spring from luxury, envy, avarice, drunkenness and the like, yet these are tolerated because they cannot be prevented by legal enactments.” 

“The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.” 

“I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of the peace.” 

-as culled from here