He [Spinoza] believes in authority. And, of course, he believed in freedom of thought and expression, whereas Hobbes does not. There is a book on Spi… - Benedictus de Spinoza

The distance that separates Spinoza from Descartes and Hobbes is testimony to the reality of the Spinozian anomaly in modern thought. It would be interesting to ask ourselves why this anomaly was not sufficiently emphasized (except in polemical and demonic terms) in the years after Spinoza's death. [...] Here I want only to focus on the particularly strong political persecution waged against Spinozian thought and the ideological repression intent on mutilating and slandering it. This leads, once again, to a general observation: It is primarily on the political level, in the history of thought, that Spinozian philosophy is persecuted. It is important to emphasize this: His terrific metaphysical installation was quickly recognized as politics and presented itself immediately as revolutionary thought. This confirms my hypothesis: Spinoza's true politics is his metaphysics.

Before I became a Marxist in 1924, I was in favor of pantheism, Zhuangzi, the Indian Buddhist thought of the Upanisads, and the Western philosopher Spinoza. I felt close to Johann W. Goethe also because of this inclination.

[...] In this Spartan room there was a man pacing little steps, his hands clasped behind his back, his big head thrust forward as though to butt. The man looked exactly like Ben-Gurion, but there was no way he could actually be Ben-Gurion. Every child in Israel, even in kindergarten, in those days knew in his sleep what Ben-Gurion looked like. But since there was no television yet, it was obvious to me that the Father of the Nation was a giant whose head reached the clouds, whereas this impostor was a short, tubby man whose height was less than five foot three. (...) David Ben-Gurion was about seventy-five at the time, and I was barely twenty. (...) I sat down in a flash on the chair facing the desk. I sat bolt upright, but only on the edge of the chair. There was no question of leaning back. Silence. The Father of the Nation continued to pace to and fro with hasty little steps, like a caged lion or someone who was determined not to be late. After half an eternity, he suddenly said: “Spinoza!” And he stopped. When he had walked away as far as the window, he whirled around and said: “Have you read Spinoza? You have. But maybe you didn't understand? Few people understand Spinoza. Very few.” And then, still pacing to and fro, to and fro, between the window and the door, he burst into a protracted dawn lecture on Spinoza's thought. (...) But Ben-Gurion, it turned out, was enjoying lecturing on Spinoza before seven o'clock in the morning. And he did indeed continue for a few minutes without interruption.