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...........................................................Baruch Spinoza:

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

“Happiness is not the reward of virtue, but is virtue itself; nor do we delight in happiness because we restrain from our lusts; but on the contrary, because we delight in it, therefore we are able to restrain them.” 

“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.” 

“Peace is not the absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition of benevolence, confidence, justice.” 

"He who seeks equality between unequals seeks an absurdity."

“When a man is prey to his emotions, he is not his own master.”

“The greatest secret of monarchic rule...is to keep men deceived and to cloak in the specious name of religion the fear by which they must be checked, so that they will fight for slavery as they would for salvation, and will think it not shameful, but a most honorable achievement, to give their life and blood that one man may have a ground for boasting.”