The mystery of Christ or of the personal God.
1841
I would have found only one remedy when I was young: it was to admit the thing as it was, and to confess all my extravagance to myself...
1741-1784
Social life, wherever it is normal, is spontaneous: and if it is abnormal, it cannot last.
1893
The most careless observer soon perceives that there is such a disposition as benevolence and generosity; that there are such sentiments as love, friendship, compassion, and gratitude.
1751
Inscribed marble statue base
ca. 270–250 BCE
That everything that happens, everything without exception, is absolutely necessary, is a truth that presents itself to us a priori, and therefore unshakeable: I will call it here demonstrable fatalism.
1836
I appeal to my courage and my sword.
1636
It would be impossible for there to be any failure in the world if the principles were not excellent; [...] there could be no disorder if there were not a primary and invariable rule.
c. 253-270 AD
I am one of those over whom imagination has great sway. [...] I would gladly spend my life in the company of healthy and cheerful people.
1580
Wall paintings on black ground: from the imperial villa at Boscotrecase
last decade of the 1st century BCE
It seems to me I hear a doctor say to his patient: Sir, do not have a fever.
1758
The effeminate man fears to die, when he has already made a death of his own life!
63-64 AD
My spirits, fed by this freedom [to write], regain new strength.
1574
I am on a continuous journey.
1643-1649
Copper alloy dagger blade
ca. 2200–1800 BCE
Patience is the art of hoping.
1747
When insight and science are at a loss, then and not sooner, one appeals to common sense; it is one of the subtle inventions of our time, by which the most vapid babbler can take on the most solid mind.
1783
The Christian religion [...] proscribes [...] reason? Does it not forbid its use in the examination of the marvelous dogmas it presents to us?
1766
Consider a ferry crossing a river. If an empty, drifting boat happens to bump into it, [...] the ferrymen will not get angry, because no person has come into conflict with them, the boat being empty.
4th century BC
Margaretha van Clootwijk (born about 1580/81, died 1662)
1639
Men are so avid for novelty that even the fortunate desire it as eagerly as those whose lot is to be pitied.
1513-1519
He must wish, after having thus known what he is, to also know where he comes from, and what he is to become.
1670
A proletarian mass, powerful in numbers, but without leaders, without any political education, subject to panic as well as to fits of fury almost without cause, an easy prey to every false rumor that was spread.
1851-1852
We live by opinion, [...] we esteem and [...] love whatever is loved and esteemed in the world, despite the remorse of our conscience.
1674-1675
Portrait of an Officer
1784
This magistrate [...] does not for a moment accept that one has the right to tell [commonplace stories].
1926
The mechanism of all intelligence is quite simple [...]. A single primitive fact is inexplicable; all others are necessary consequences of it.
1805
Attention consists of suspending one's thought, leaving it available, empty, and penetrable to the object [...]. Thought must be empty, waiting, not seeking anything, but ready to receive in its naked truth the object that is to penetrate it.
1942
What knowledge of history [...]? But what an elevation of ideas on the true happiness of man! One sees from his way of thinking [...] that his life was in conformity with his doctrine.
45 BC
Boatman among the Reeds
ca. 1865
There was no canon of the holy books before the time of the Maccabees.
1670
If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life.
c. 375 BC
Those who [...] asserted that nothing can be known with certainty, [propagate] a discouraging opinion.
1620
It is not poverty that must be rejected, but the idea one has of it.
c. 108 AD
Head and neck from a marble figure
2700–2500 BCE
I look at modern nations. I see many makers of laws, but not a single legislator.
1771-1772
The entire history of social progress consists in the series of transitions that lead a custom or institution to pass from the rank of a primary necessity [...] to that of a universally condemned injustice.
1861
The care we ought to have, not to take for real happiness one which is but imaginary, is the necessary foundation of our Liberty.
1689
The flaw of the French is to limit the arts by dint of wanting to make them simple. By this, they sometimes deprive themselves of the best, only to keep the good.
1746
Pin
50 CE - 400 CE
As soon as absolute power was vanquished, the true spirit of the revolution suddenly revealed itself.
1864-1866
Once written, a discourse rolls everywhere, into the hands of those who understand it as well as those for whom it is not intended. It does not even know to whom it should speak, with whom it should be silent.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Pity stands in opposition to the tonic emotions which heighten our vitality: it has a depressive effect. We lose strength when we feel pity.
1888
He is my student; and from his youth, I have cultivated his morals and his talents. I have succeeded fully, I pride myself on it.
c. 1730
Portrait of a Man in Royal Livery
1532–35
Truth is the adequation of the thing and the intellect.
c. 1270
If our body is the matter to which our consciousness applies itself, it is coextensive with our consciousness, it includes everything we perceive, it reaches to the stars.
1932
The man of proven and perfect virtue desires no other glory than that which is the fruit of public trust, and which opens the way for him to great undertakings.
100-120 AD
The way of influence is that of common philosophy; but, as one cannot conceive of material particles that could pass from one of these substances to the other, this view must be abandoned.
1696
Head of Saint John the Evangelist
1818