No one is unaware that our character and our turn of mind depend entirely on the privy.
1764
Intolerance in matters of religion was born in the bosom of Christianity.
1770
Every being must be held to be possible until its impossibility is proven.
Late 17th - early 18th century
The perfectly just man is a mediator.
1953
Fragment of a limestone relief with two standing figures
4th–3rd century BCE
The will is a blind power, which can only direct itself toward things that the understanding represents to it.
1674-1675
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
Authority also supports men's prejudices, forbids them from examining, forces them into ignorance, and is always ready to punish anyone who would attempt to undeceive them.
1766
It is universally admitted that partiality is incompatible with justice; preference given to one person over another, when there is no reason to prefer them, is unjust.
1861
Head and neck from a marble figure
2700–2500 BCE
God is only the fictitious projection of man.
1841
If I perceive this loss of my faculties, and I become displeasing to myself, how could I still find pleasure in living?
4th century BC
The art of pleasing is the art of deceiving.
1747
All science is composed of two kinds of knowledge: one is inspired by divinity; the other derives its origin from the senses.
1623
Portrait of a Man
1485
The more a man belongs to posterity, in other words to humanity as a whole, the more he is a stranger to his time.
1851
Often, by wanting to keep everything, one loses everything, and by being unwilling to part with false customs [...] one gives enemies the opportunity to shake the good [...] traditions.
c. 1552-1553
There enters into our composition something of the character of the turtledove, though allied with that of the wolf and the serpent.
1751
It is certain that, without this ordeal, clemency and other virtues [...] would never have been so noticed or so esteemed as they will be in the future by all who read the story.
1643-1649
Upper part of a female limestone votary
2nd or 3rd quarter of the 6th century BCE
The other knew neither how to honorably guard himself from death, nor how to bear it courageously.
100-120 AD
If painting is in fashion, the most miraculous sculpture will not be admired as it would be if sculpture responded to the dominant taste.
1926
In the darkness one sees fire, the stars, and their shapes. No one could claim that, in this case, the forms of objects, being imprinted on the dark air, are transmitted to the eye.
c. 253-270 AD
For any strengthening, for any elevation of the 'man' type, a new kind of enslavement is necessary.
1882
Limestone statuette of a male votary (worshipper)
mid-6th century BCE
[...] 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
To hate one's soul is to resist its guilty desires. [...] When our soul suggests thoughts contrary to the law of God, we must reject it with horror.
1263-1264
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
The maladies of the soul grow more obscure in their strength: the sickest man feels them the least.
1580
Parochialstrasse in Berlin
1831
The right of blood and of birth [...] makes a Prince by chance: but adoption permits a choice, and the public voice indicates it.
1754
Evil never keeps to a measure.
63-64 AD
If men grew accustomed to mixing [...] serious moments of reflection [...], their joys would perhaps be less noisy, and would give way to that serene calm of a soul for whom there are no more unexpected accidents.
1760
Political societies have been founded on nothing other than the consent of the people.
1690
A Bouquet of Flowers in a Crystal Vase
1662
I preferred to expose good people to deploring my fate, rather than plunging them into despair.
September 57 BC
Preference does not apply to the goal itself that we pursue, but to the means that can lead to it. [...] What we want is the end itself.
4th century BC
Men must be either pampered or crushed [...] when it comes to offending a man, it must be done in such a way that one need not fear his revenge.
1513
If citizens could not achieve their private happiness without doing public good, then only fools would be vicious.
1758
Chlorite pestle
ca. 1600–1050 BCE
Our character is still us; and because one has taken pleasure in splitting the person into two parts [...] it would be somewhat childish to conclude that one of the two selves weighs on the other.
1889
If we place ourselves in the heights, above the turning wheel, [one country] is not destroyed, [another] is not prosperous. Everything [...] passes through the two phases of ruin and prosperity.
4th century BC
Instead of revenge [...], [the heroic heart] forgives an unjust hatred, and [...] even returns good for evil.
1636
Pascal's method, which at first promised to be historical and analytical, ultimately appears as logical and synthetic.
1663
Young Woman in a Blue and Black Dress
ca. 1863 (?)
Works of art have [...] more value when they are of a nature that can only be made by a small number of artisans, as they are then rarer.
1776
I could not help but be astonished [...] at the speed with which I had, in two days, familiarized myself with these ideas of inexorable destruction that were naturally so foreign to me.
1893
[Our doctrine] teaches us to await and to bear both good and bad fortune with an equal mind; all things [...] follow from the eternal decree of God with an absolute necessity.
1661-1675
Each of them becomes a source of spontaneous activity. Individual personalities are formed, becoming conscious of themselves.
1893
The Crucifixion
ca. 1480