Marriage is the only real servitude recognized by our laws. There are no longer any slaves by law except for the mistress of each house.
1869
The law, that is, the threat of punishment, has rather the purpose of being a contrary motive intended to counterbalance the seductions of evil in the minds of men.
1839
[It is] the power that priests arrogate to themselves [...] to forgive, in the name of heaven, the sins confessed to them.
1766
A social fact can only be called normal for a given social species, in relation to a given phase of its development.
1895
Terracotta statuette of an actor
late 5th–early 4th century BCE
Many things seem greater in imagination than they are in effect.
1580
Any explanation is better than a lack of explanation.
1888
Essences are perpetual, because they are only concerned with what is possible.
1704
Malice pleases us [...] because we love slander and wit.
1763
Saint Vincent, Patron Saint of Lisbon
1525
The mechanism of the association of ideas is here of an extreme complication.
1900
It is not peace, but war, schism, that is to the taste of most.
1623
A truly admirable thing is that after overthrowing such a great monarchy, [a man] did not increase his own wealth by a single drachma.
100-120 AD
My purpose [...] is to make of you men who are freed from all hindrance, all constraint, all obstacle, free, tranquil, and happy.
c. 108 AD
Bronze statuette of Osiris
664–31 BCE
The arts must make some progress to pull us out of a crude life; and they must stop after some progress, to prevent us from falling into a soft life.
1776
It is also intended that both the torch-bearers and lantern-bearers be known persons with a domicile in this city [...], without which they will not be accepted.
1662
By natural reason alone, we can indeed make many conjectures to our advantage and have fine hopes, but by no means any assurance.
1643-1649
It is immutability that characterizes the Sage in the midst of the crowd.
4th century BC
A Man with the Initials FM
1751
The revelation of truth can only be odious to those impostors who present the enlightened people as seditious, and the stupefied people as docile.
1772
History shows us [...] that in countries where political discussion is restricted, opposition [...] is hidden behind a more holy and apparently more disinterested struggle.
1851-1852
If quickness of mind alone should not command in chief, it can at least command in second.
1636
A child who has never left the paternal home imagines that the feelings and manners of his parents are universal reason.
1674-1675
Limestone statuette of a boy with a flat headdress
6th century BCE
The art of pleasing is the art of deceiving.
1747
The right of pardon, [...], in a well-ordered society, cannot be used as a routine means of administering prisons.
1864-1866
This Faculty of perceiving is, it seems to me, what distinguishes Animals from Beings of a lower species.
1689
Fortune blinds the minds of men when she does not wish them to oppose her designs.
1855
Bronze statuette of a votary
ca. 1600 BCE or later
A virtuous habit, which is contracted by the repetition of acts, is not for that reason easily moved [...].
c. 1270
'We recognize the principle of the decline of humanity, and consequently the necessity of its regeneration; we believe in the possibility of this regeneration [...].'
1896
When I experience a great pleasure, I cannot help but wish for all those I love to enjoy it.
1759-1774
The pleasure which necessarily precedes the observation of a law [...] is pathological [...]; but that which is necessarily preceded by the law [...] belongs to the moral order.
1797-1798
Terracotta female head
late 3rd–2nd century BCE
[An ending is tragic and pleases] when the clever, but perverse man has been deceived [...] and the brave, but unjust man has been vanquished.
c. 335 BC
Why should the idea of human fragility [...] trouble your most delicious hours? Why should this fatal poison corrupt pleasures at their very source...?
1742
To hide was to condemn oneself to the most shameful death; to join [the enemy] was crime and madness: courage, virtue, and honor commanded to join the [good citizens].
63 BC
I am [...] sure that there is a God, in the sense that I am [...] sure that my love is not illusory.
1947
Limestone inscribed block
3900 BCE - 100 CE
All our ideas, all our perceptions are things that we feel, that is, sensations, to which we give different names, according to their different effects.
1801
God placed the soul in the world so that, seeing the evils of which matter is the principle, it might return to the Father and be forever freed from such contagion.
c. 253-270 AD
[Philosophy] shows what to practice or to flee, it sits at the helm and directs our agitated course through the reefs.
63-64 AD
If I advance in age, I know that I must necessarily pay my tribute to old age; my sight will weaken, I will hear less well, my intelligence will decline [...].
4th century BC
Bronze statuette of a bull
early 5th century BCE
It belongs to the essence of a mountain to have a valley.
c. 1660
Public malignity is very clairvoyant in this matter.
1926
Let us only win peace and not worry that it be poor: if we have war, nothing is enough; if we have peace, nothing will be lacking.
c. 1552-1553
The right of slavery is null, not only because it is illegitimate, but because it is absurd and meaningless.
1762
Colossal marble head of the emperor Augustus
ca. 14–30 CE