Everything changes, nothing perishes.
1623
Almost everyone receives their ideas ready-made and follows public opinion their whole life. [...] Servile imitators, who say yes or no according to how they've been prompted, and then believe they have decided for themselves.
4th century BC
This is not about [...] those metaphysical subtleties that have pervaded all parts of literature [...]; but it is about one of those truths that concern the happiness of the human race.
1750
Political societies have been founded on nothing other than the consent of the people.
1690
Portrait of a Woman
1817
My word, I believe one hardly has any fun when one is king.
1819
Sometimes be the object of ridicule, and then cast a calm gaze around you. You must be shaken up, so that you learn to know yourself.
c. 108 AD
As soon as [the surplus] ceases to be consumed, it will cease to be reproduced.
1776
A religion that prides itself on being supernatural must seek to denature man: [...] it forbids him to love himself; it orders him to hate pleasures and to cherish pain.
1766
L'Arlésienne: Madame Joseph-Michel Ginoux (Marie Julien, 1848–1911)
1888–89
What motive would one have to extol an action, a character, if one agrees at the same time that these things are good for nothing?
1751
[...] your biblical faith is sincere [...] only when it accepts as the divine word everything, absolutely everything, that one reads in the Holy Scripture; but as soon as you establish distinctions [...] you are splitting hairs, you are nothing but hypocrites who pretend to be believers.
1841
One does not take the trouble to persuade when one can command.
1758
Everyone must strive to live as honorably as possible and not dishonor the reputation of their ancestors.
c. 387 BC
Diana
ca. 1760
The reality of matter consists in the totality of its elements and their actions [...]. Our representation of matter is the measure of our possible action on bodies.
1896
It must be known that the predicaments [highest categories] cannot be defined.
c. 1270
Nature has given the pig, in guise of salt, a soul, so that it does not corrupt.
1796
Weak republics are irresolute and do not know how to make a decision; [...] it is more to necessity than to their own choice that it must be attributed.
1513-1519
Seated male figurine
ca. 600–480 BCE
A person is not mistaken in so far as they perceive a certain object, but only in so far as they give or refuse their assent to it.
1661-1675
The practice of an art can be brought to a very high degree of perfection, although its theory is still completely unknown.
1801
What is more wretched than to be able to always become less and less? What is richer than [...] to love greatly that which cannot be diminished?
c. 253-270 AD
Man believes he leads his life, directs himself; and his inner life is irresistibly made by his destiny.
1836
Limestone male figure in Egyptian dress
mid-6th century BCE
There is never a political movement which is not at the same time social.
1847
Nor should one say something that can be taken in a sense other than the one intended.
86-82 BC
[Objection:] That this proposition, that a space is empty, is repugnant to common sense.
1647
The inhabitant of the United States learns from birth that he must rely on himself to fight against the evils and embarrassments of life; he casts only a defiant and anxious glance upon social authority [...].
1835-1840
A Man with the Initials JD
1790
Of justice, of reason, and of other spiritual values, no splendor is to be found in their images here below.
1953
[He] felt that the glory to which he aspired was a limitless thing, and had no end that one could reach.
100-120 AD
What is good in the hypotheses of Epicurus and Plato, of the greatest materialists and the greatest idealists, is united here.
1702
All things produced by our own discourse and sufficiency, the true as well as the false, are subject to uncertainty and debate.
1580
Limestone statue of a lion
ca. 700–650 BCE
The director fully adopted our views, but he was faced with the author's resistance. He went ahead anyway.
1926
Most men are far too busy with themselves to be wicked.
1878
Where will I find these connections, if not in the study of myself and the knowledge of men [...]?
1746
What [...] color, race, religion, or nationality [...] are for some men, sex is for all women; it is a radical exclusion from almost all honorable occupations.
1869
Bronze youth
late 5th century BCE
The soul is endowed with life, but no number can live; therefore, the soul is not a species of number.
End of the 4th century BC
Men reason about things only in relation to the ideas that are most familiar to them.
1674-1675
The habit of success is so flattering that most people always aspire to new successes [...], like those with dropsy who cannot quench their thirst.
1636
The only collective sentiments that have become more intense are those whose object is not social things, but the individual.
1893
A Man Seated and Asleep
ca. 1865
To try always to conquer myself rather than fortune, and to change my desires rather than the order of the world.
1637
A free judgment offends the ears of the great.
1574
...because they burn whomever they please.
1764
To worship God is to know Him well.
63-64 AD
Horse and Buggy
1909