Baruch Spinoza — Dutch Philosopher born on November 24, 1632, died on February 21, 1677

Baruch Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Sephardi Portuguese origin. The breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until many years after his death. By laying the groundwork for the 18th-century Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism, including modern conceptions of the self and the universe, he came to be considered one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy His magnum opus, the posthumous Ethics, in which he opposed Descartes' mind–body dualism, has earned him recognition as one of Western philosophy's most important thinkers. In the Ethics, "Spinoza wrote the last indisputable Latin masterpiece, and one in which the refined conceptions of medieval philosophy are finally turned against themselves and destroyed entirely."Hegel said, "You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all." His philosophical accomplishments and moral character prompted 20th-century philosopher Gilles Deleuze to name him "the 'prince' of philosophers"... (wikipedia)

Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.
If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.
All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.
I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.
I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused.