Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677)

After experience had taught me that all things which are ordinarily encountered in common life are vain and futile, and when I saw that all things which were the occasions and objects of my fears had in themselves nothing of good or evil except in so far as the mind was moved by them; I at length determined to Inquire if there were anything which was a true good, capable of imparting itself, by which alone the mind could be affected to the exclusion of all else: whether anything existed indeed by the discovery And acquisition of which I might be put in possession of a Joy continuous and supreme to all eternity.