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Ethics Quotes by Benedict de Spinoza: Context & Meanings

1 quotation linked to Ethics by or associated with Benedict de Spinoza, with source notes, explanations and related topics.

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About this source

Benedict de Spinoza’s posthumously published Ethics, represented in R. H. M. Elwes’s public-domain English translation

Topics and ideas

Virtue, blessedness, reason, emotions, freedom, knowledge, God/Nature and the structure of Spinoza’s ethical-metaphysical system.

English wording

Translation

R. H. M. Elwes — Translator · Latin → English

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Represented passages

1 quotations with source context and meaning

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Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself;

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“Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself;”

Benedict de Spinoza

Meaning & context

Spinoza argues that the highest form of flourishing is not an external prize paid for virtuous conduct but is bound up with the activity he calls virtue itself.

Source details

Ethics, Part V, Proposition XLII, R. H. M. Elwes translation represented by Project Gutenberg #3800. ‘Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself’ introduces Spinoza's proposition linking blessedness, knowledge, virtue and control of the emotions. It remains translation-mediated seventeenth-century metaphysical ethics, not a universal psychological measurement or clinical prescription.