101 Dogma-Shattering Remarks From Two Of The Most Relentless Nonconformists In Human History
Because the cost of conformity is colossal & dogma is the deadliest thing known to the human mind.
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) are two of the most radical philosophers of all time.
They don’t have everything in common (though they’re not totally dissimilar, either) but if there’s one denominator that unites them both, it’s their ability to corrupt the status-quo — to obliterate the safe secure dogmas by means of which most humans live — and to do so with flashes insight so brilliant that they scorch the retina and leave the mind’s eye forever marked: marked in a way sharp, searing, and perhaps painful at first, yet in the end, when the eye of the mind mends, bringing a wider scope of vision and enlarged comprehension, which once absorbed and synthesized into the individual mind, enhances the grasp of human consciousness and the universe at large.
Notorious, famous, infamous, Friedrich Nietzsche is the philosopher you can never quite dismiss — no matter how much you or anyone else may wish to dismiss him.
Nietzsche died well over a century ago, but his words, unkillable and invincible, still possess enough live-wire voltage to burn to the ground entire worldviews, via a single explosive charge — a charge of intellectual dynamite.
Baruch Spinoza (Baruch is Dutch for “Benito” and comes from the Latin “Benedict” which means “blessed”) isn’t nearly as well known as Nietzsche, and yet Spinoza is every bit as heterodox, equaling Nietzsche in the depth of his vision and his uncanny power to slash down entire belief-systems in one fell guillotine-swoop — and eclipsing Nietzsche in the scope and comprehensiveness of his philosophical system.
This, Reader, is the total testament to the vital role of ideas in human life.
Upon his first reading of Spinoza, Nietzsche wrote the following:
I am utterly amazed, utterly enchanted! I have a precursor, and what a precursor! I hardly knew Spinoza: that I should have turned to him just now, was inspired by ‘instinct.’ Not only is his over-tendency like mine — namely to make all knowledge the most powerful affect — but in five main points of his doctrine I recognize myself. This most unusual and loneliest thinker is closest to me precisely in these matters.
Even now, centuries later, the language of both men retain the power to change the world forever and for the better.
Off-the-mark or on it, both of these philosophers were incontrovertibly freethinkers — in the truest sense of the term — both guided by the judgement of their own individual minds, with the confidence to think for themselves, no matter how at odds their views were (and still are) with what’s commonly mis-termed “conventional wisdom.”
Wisdom, let it be noted, is never “conventional.” It is the polar opposite:
Wisdom — true wisdom, as Spinoza well-defines it below — is always at odds with the conventional: wisdom is by definition rarified, renegade, elusive, and arrantly unconventional.
Irrespective of how in the final analysis you regard either of these two thinkers, their independence of thought alone is worthy of homage: because the colossal ocean of conformity threatens always to drown out the individual human being who would dare to think for herself.
Some of the following passages you will perhaps agree with.
Others you will perhaps resist.
Pay closest attention to those which you resist — because contained therein are ideas like living seeds which may indeed challenge your most deeply cherished and most deeply held convictions. Yet for this one reason alone, they must not be dismissed, ignored, or passed over.
Why do I say so?
Because they contain within them also the living potential to bloom, to blossom, to flower, to grow.
Life is forward movement.
Life is upward progress.
Life is development which continually advances.
Life is growth. It is growth of body and, for humans, growth of intellect.
The words “life” and “stasis” are a contradiction in terms.
This and this alone is why the ideas to which you find yourself most resistant should be the ones which you think over most scrupulously, mulling them with your most diligent thoughts — revisiting these ideas and thinking about them again and again.
As writing is rewriting, as acting is reacting, so thinking is rethinking.
I counsel you, my friends: Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful. — Nietzsche
We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the way in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us. — Nietzsche
This workshop where “ideals” are manufactured — it seems to me it reeks of many lies. — Nietzsche
We are unknown to ourselves, we men of knowledge — and with good reason. We have never sought ourselves — and so how, then, could it happen that we should ever find ourselves? — Nietzsche
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. — Nietzsche
When a hundred humans stand together, each of them loses their minds and gets another one. — Nietzsche
Out of life’s school of war—what doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger. — Nietzsche
Nothing on earth consumes a man more quickly than the passion of resentment. — Nietzsche
A politician divides mankind into two classes: tools and enemies. — Nietzsche
The state is the coldest of all cold monsters who bites with stolen teeth. — Nietzsche.
Every kind of contempt for sex, every impurification of it by means of the concept "impure," is the crime par excellence against life — is the real sin against the holy spirit of life. — Nietzsche
You must possess some chaos within you to give birth to a star. — Nietzsche
There was only one true Christian, and he was hung on a cross. — Nietzsche
God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight. — Nietzsche
Dante, I think, committed a crude blunder when, with a terror-inspiring ingenuity, he placed above the gateway of his hell the inscription, “I too was created by eternal love” — at any rate, there would be more justification for placing above the gateway to the Christian Paradise the inscription “I too was created by eternal hate.” — Nietzsche
If there’s one thing we can learn from the cow, it is this: the art of ruminating. — Nietzsche
There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy. — Nietzsche
Everyone who has ever built anywhere a new heaven first found the power thereto in his own hell. — Nietzsche
The Kingdom of Heaven is a condition of the heart — not something that comes only after one is dead. — Nietzsche
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. — Nietzsche
The existence of forgetting has never been proven: we only know that some things do not come to mind when we want them. — Nietzsche
No victor believes in chance. — Nietzsche
Convictions not closely considered are more dangerous foes of truth than outright lies. — Nietzsche
In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad. — Nietzsche
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself. — Nietzsche
It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages. — Nietzsche
The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude. — Nietzsche
The most common lie is that which one tells himself; lying to others is a relative exception. — Nietzsche
Rejoicing in our joy, not suffering over our suffering, is what makes someone a friend. — Nietzsche
Without music, life would be a mistake. — Nietzsche
The investigation of Nature in general is the definition of philosophy. — Spinoza
Superstition is founded on ignorance. — Spinoza
Superstition is the laziest word in the vocabulary of ignorance. Nothing is supernatural because nothing can transcend the laws of nature. — Spinoza
Everyone by a supreme law of nature is master of his own thoughts. — Spinoza
If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past. — Spinoza
Peace is not the absence of war, but rather a virtue that springs from a state of mind: a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice. — Spinoza
All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love. — Spinoza
I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion; because it is only in relation to the human mind and our imaginations that things can be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused. — Spinoza
The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding’s sake, because to understand is to be free. — Spinoza
I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them. — Spinoza
Apply yourself with real energy to serious work. — Spinoza
I call him “free” who is led solely by reason. — Spinoza
Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare. — Spinoza
Will and intellect are one and the same thing. — Spinoza
The less the mind understands and the more things it perceives, the greater its power of feigning is; and the more things it understands, the more that power is diminished. — Spinoza
Don’t cry and don’t rage. Understand. — Spinoza
The vain and vainglorious love the company of parasites or flatterers and hate the company of those of noble spirit. — Spinoza
Rarely do people live by the guidance of reason but instead are generally disposed to envy and disdain. — Spinoza
Knowledge of evil is inadequate knowledge, without a counter knowledge of the good. — Spinoza
The real slave lives under the sway of pleasure and can neither see nor do what is for their own good. — Spinoza
We are so constituted by nature that we are ready to believe what we hope and reluctant to believe what we fear. — Spinoza
Reason is a faculty for the integration of knowledge that human beings possess. — Spinoza
Reason alone asserts its claim to the realm of truth. — Spinoza
Truth is the accurate apprehension of reality. — Spinoza
Truth more than anything else has the power to effect a close union between different sentiments and dispositions. — Spinoza
People under the guidance of reason seek nothing for themselves that they would not desire for the rest of humanity. — Spinoza
I am at a loss to understand the reasoning whereby it is considered that chance and necessity are not contraries. — Spinoza
A thing does not cease to be true merely because it is not accepted by many. — Spinoza
A thing does not become true merely because it is accepted by many. — Spinoza
Don’t be astonished at new ideas — for it’s well known that a thing doesn’t cease to be true merely because it’s not accepted by many. — Spinoza
In demonstrating the truths of Nature, does not truth reveal its own self? — Spinoza
Reason is in reality the light of the mind, without which the mind sees nothing but dreams and fantasies. — Spinoza
Truth becomes a casualty when in trials attention is paid not to justice or truth but to the extent of anything other. — Spinoza
Freedom is of the first importance in fostering the sciences and the arts. — Spinoza
Everywhere truth becomes a casualty through hostility or servility when despotic power is in the hands of one or few. — Spinoza
Healthy people take solitary tranquil pleasure in existence and thus enjoy a better life than those who live merely to avoid death. — Spinoza
When one is prey solely to his or her emotions, he or she is no longer their own master. — Spinoza
The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue. — Spinoza
He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason. — Spinoza
The effort to make everyone else approve what we love or hate is, in truth, a kind of warped ambition, and so we see that each person by nature desires that other persons should live according to his way of thinking. — Spinoza
The wise are richest in not greedily pursuing riches at the expense of everything else. — Spinoza
If we could live by reason as much as we are led by blind desire, all would order their lives wisely in being by reason led. — Spinoza
Evil is that which hinders a person’s capacity to perfect reason and to enjoy a rational life. — Spinoza
People possess nothing more excellent than understanding, and can suffer no greater punishment than their folly. — Spinoza
The majority of people are quite incapable of distracting their minds from thinking upon any other goods besides sensual pleasure or riches. — Spinoza
Desires and aims that arise from reason can never be excessive. — Spinoza
The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is. — Spinoza
Those who know the true use of money, and regulate the measure of wealth according to their needs, live contented. — Spinoza
Insofar as the mind sees things in their eternal aspect, it participates in eternity. — Spinoza
Happiness is not the reward of virtue, but is virtue itself. — Spinoza
Nor do we delight in happiness because we restrain from our lusts, but on the contrary, because we delight in happiness, we are therefore able to restrain our lusts. — Spinoza
Excessive pride, or self-abasement, indicates excessive weakness of spirit. — Spinoza
Hatred is increased by being reciprocated, yet can on the other hand be destroyed by love. — Spinoza
Hatred which is completely vanquished by love, passes into love, and love is thereupon greater than if hatred had not preceded it. — Spinoza
Minds are conquered not by arms, but by love, nobility, and most especially the nobility of ideas. — Spinoza
Self-preservation is the fundamental foundation of virtue. — Spinoza
Ignorance of truth and true-causes makes for total confusion. — Spinoza
Conduct that brings about harmony is that which is related to justice. — Spinoza
The better part of us is in harmony with the order of the whole of Nature. — Spinoza
All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love. — Spinoza
Love is nothing but Joy with the accompanying idea of an external cause. — Spinoza
Love agrees with reason if its cause is not merely physical beauty but especially freedom of the spirit. — Spinoza
Devotion is love toward one at whom we wonder. — Spinoza
Most people parade their own ideas as God’s word, mainly to compel others to think like them under religious pretexts. — Spinoza
The mind of God is all the mentality that is scattered over space and time, the diffused consciousness that animates the world. — Spinoza
Outside Nature, there is and can be no thing and no being. — Spinoza
A miracle — either contrary to Nature or above Nature — is mere absurdity. — Spinoza
Nothing exists from whose nature an effect does not follow. — Spinoza
Everyone should be allowed freedom of judgment and the right to interpret the basic tenets of their faith as they and they alone think fit. — Spinoza
The eternal part of the mind is the intellect, through which alone we are said to be active. — Spinoza
I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of the peace. — Spinoza
Only free people are truly grateful to one another. — Spinoza
The supreme mystery of despotism, its prop and stay, is to keep humans 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 their actually fighting for salvation. — Spinoza
When all decisions are made by a few people who have only themselves to please, freedom and the common good are lost. — Spinoza
The mind is passive only to the extent that it has inadequate or confused ideas. — Spinoza
The ultimate aim of a just government is neither to rule, nor restrain by fear, nor to exact obedience, nor to enforce taxation, morality, or duty, but to free every human-being from fear that each may live in all possible security. In fact the true aim of government is liberty. — Spinoza
All laws which can be violated without doing anyone any injury are [or should be] laughed at. — Spinoza
He who tries to determine everything by law will foment crime rather than lessen it. — Spinoza
Those who take an oath by law will avoid perjury more if they swear by freedom from the state and the state’s “welfare” instead of by God. — Spinoza
A society will be more secure, stable, and less exposed to fortune, which is founded and governed mainly by people possessed of true wisdom. — Spinoza
True wisdom consists in the active, unremitting application of acquired knowledge — it matters not how deep the knowledge, how small or large it is in scope, however nascent, however little, however much— applying acquired knowledge to all one’s waking hours is wisdom. — Spinoza
Those who cannot manage themselves and their private affairs will far less be capable of caring for the public interest. — Spinoza
An entire people will never transfer its rights to a few people or to one person if they can reach agreement among themselves — which is to say, when they reach human cooperation freely engaged in. — Spinoza
*In adversity, there is no counsel so foolish, absurd, or vain which people will not follow. — Spinoza
*Editor’s note: I end on that particular Spinoza quote because I can think of no better encapsulation, no sharper, defter, precisely stated compendiation, of what the world has witnessed — and is still witnessing — these past three-and-a-half years. As another great philosopher expressed this same sentiment: