What can be more calamitous than that men should be regarded as enemies and put to death, not for any crime or misdeed, but for being of independent … - Benedictus de Spinoza

A free man thinks of death least of all things, and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life.

Spinoza was the man I believed in always, as the alternative to Catholicism. And it is only in Spinoza's manner that I am a positivist at all. I believe in the real world, in the world of thought and extension, of psychology and physics. God or substance with Spinoza equals reality; and this reality, which may have countless forms, we find only in space and in (other men's) consciousness. I say in other men's, because Spinoza was too sane to care to discuss anything from the point of view of subjective idealism. When one prints a book to convince other people, one oughtn't to discuss in it whether they exist. But this is all by the way, although some other day I will discuss with you the question of Spinoza's hedonism.

Wie lieb ich diesen edlen Mann Mehr als ich mit Worten sagen kann. Doch fürcht' ich, dass er bleibt allein Mit seinem strahlenen Heiligenschein. (How much do I love that noble man More than I could tell with words I fear though he'll remain alone With a holy halo of his own.)