"There may be no philosopher in history who has received greater attention in artistic, literary and popular culture than Bento de Spinoza . His life, ideas and influence have been the subject of numerous novels, plays, poems, paintings, sculptures, even musical pieces and opera. His name and his visage have been used in the marketing of various items in the worlds of entertainment, leisure and consumption, from cafés to rock bands to bagels. A relatively simple explanation for Spinoza's unusually high profile outside the walls of academia is at hand. Spinoza was the most radical and iconoclastic thinker of his time. His ideas on religion, politics, ethics, human psychology and metaphysics, presented in difficult and sometimes mystifying treatises, lay the groundwork for much of what we now regard as “modern.” Perhaps most enticing of all, he was excommunicated from the Amsterdam Portuguese-Jewish community as a young man for reasons that remain obscure . Everyone loves a rebel—especially one whose values they likely share and whom, they feel, was unjustly punished by those in power."

“Humanam impotentiam in moderandis et coercendis affectibus servitutem voco; homo enim affectibus obnoxius sui juris non est sed fortunæ in cujus potestate ita est ut sæpe coactus sit quanquam meliora sibi videat, deteriora tamen sequi.”

“Meum institutum non est verborum significationem sed rerum naturam explicare”

“Hic conatus aliquid agendi et etiam omittendi ea sola de causa ut hominibus placeamus, vocatur ambitio præsertim quando adeo impense vulgo placere conamur ut cum nostro aut alterius damno quædam agamus vel omittamus; alias humanitas appellari solet.”

“veritas norma sui et falsi est”

“Ordo et connexio idearum idem est ac ordo et connexio rerum”

“[B]y Natura naturans we must understand what is in itself and is conceived through itself, or such attributes of substance as express an eternal and infinite essence, that is … God, insofar as he is considered as a free cause. But by Natura naturata I understand whatever follows from the necessity of God's nature, or from God's attributes, that is, all the modes of God's attributes insofar as they are considered as things which are in God, and can neither be nor be conceived without God.”