It is a greater thing to break through difficulties than to moderate one's joys.
63-64 AD
He was the object of general admiration, [...] as simple in his clothes, his equipages, and his table, as if he had lived in the Academy with Plato.
100-120 AD
If we are deprived of the sweetness of caressing our wives, what will console us for the harshness of our masters?
1775-1784
[...] a figure that clearly shows his ignorance.
1643-1649
Nail
7000 BCE - 330 CE
[...] when a greater quantity of money had further raised prices, people bought from abroad where everything cost less, what they previously bought within the kingdom.
1776
Otherwise, we must accept it, subject to discussing its probable significance in the moral evolution...
1643-1662
Only the absolute necessity of moral principles for the maintenance of society can keep these principles pure in our minds.
1757
Justice that is relative to others is, to put it in a single word, equity, equality; the unjust is the unequal.
4th century BC
Figures on the Beach
1890
[...] the more a memory is renewed, the more easily it awakens all collateral memories, although they become less striking. This is how the association of ideas is established [...].
1801
Who then could you reasonably consider more just than a man who has adapted to his present fortune, to the point of never needing what belongs to others?
4th century BC
Valor without power is quite useless; it is one more torment.
1764
Just like individuals, kingdoms and republics are born, flourish, and decline when old age reaches them.
1580
Terracotta statuette of Harpocrates
2nd century CE
The bonds of Christian communion are thus marked: one faith, one baptism, and not a single rite, a single opinion.
1623
Is literature anything other than a geometry without figures, a metaphysics without barbarisms?
1882
If the salvation of the State is at stake, [both a prince and a republic], to avert the danger, will break its commitments and will not be afraid to show ingratitude.
1855
Everything that, contrary to truth, injures justice in any way whatsoever, is a lie. That is the exact limit.
1776-1778
The Crucifixion
ca. 1480
Others spend their lives doubting and arguing, without bothering about the subjects of their disputes and their doubts.
1746
If [the proposition] 'he is not a man' is false, it is verified by this one, 'he is a man', and vice versa.
c. 1270
Beauty being as real a good as strength and health, reason does not forbid one from valuing it.
1926
The fortunate [...] feel adversity much more keenly than those who have already experienced it.
1636
Leda and the Swan, after Boucher
1800
[They] would have left behind in the souls of the survivors a thirst for revenge which, in times of revolution, is the most energetic and powerful spur to action.
1851-1852
How can one enlighten and strengthen a man's reason, so long as he is kept in a state where it is useless and could be harmful for him to reason?
1864-1866
Upon due consideration of all these collective Ideas, [...] they are but artificial representations that the Mind draws.
1689
The idea of a miracle necessarily includes the idea of something rare and extraordinary. [...] [Natural things] are not miracles, because they are common things.
1715-1716
Marble head of a woman wearing diadem and veil
425–400 BCE
The mind must judge all things according to its inner lights, without listening to the false and confused testimony of its senses and its imagination.
1674-1675
The law of nature is that he who is better has more than he who is lesser of that for which he is better; and you will never be indignant.
c. 108 AD
This itch [to philosophize] must be regarded as one of nature's beneficent institutions; it uses it to preserve man [...] from falling into decay.
1796
If you want to see the number of citizens animated by the same feelings as us grow, express your opinion.
59 BC
Man with a Tankard
1650
The penalty follows the fault, and it is not unjust that the soul which has contracted such or such a nature should suffer the consequences of its disposition.
c. 253-270 AD
The word makes man free; as long as he cannot speak, he is a slave: an outrageous passion, an excessive joy, an extreme sorrow, are equally mute.
1841
One is nowhere as well hidden as in a crowd.
1893
Then the pace of life slows down, it becomes thick and heavy with honey—all the way to long rests, to the faith in the long rest...
1882
Spear-butt, spike
ca. 1050–1000 BCE
I write, as the ancients wrote, with the sole intention of transmitting my thoughts to posterity.
1819
The superior man gazes into the depths of the azure sky, into the depths of the terrestrial abysses, [...] without his vital spirits being in the least disturbed.
4th century BC
If I want to see both the lake and the forest, I must climb higher. Only, the mountain does not exist. It is made of air. One cannot climb: one must be pulled.
1947
I believe that the social relations between the two sexes, which subordinate one sex to the other in the name of the law, are wrong in themselves and now constitute one of the chief hindrances to human improvement.
1869
Portrait of a Man, Possibly an Architect or Geographer
1597
No dissension is so great or so dangerous as that which comes from religion: it separates citizens, neighbors, friends, relatives [...], it breaks alliances [...] and penetrates to the depths of hearts to [...] entrench irreconcilable hatreds.
c. 1552-1553
If all men have an equal aptitude for the mind, what then can produce so much difference between them?
1772
In a word, one will perceive without difficulty that Theologians make Religion and that Religion never has anything but Theologians as its object.
1768
I cannot grant that sin or evil is something positive, much less that anything could exist or happen against the will of God.
1661-1676
Terracotta statuette of a seated woman
late 6th–early 5th century BCE