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Dead Smart People

When you're tired of listening to living idiots.

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There are acts that are weak and obscure, others hidden, others powerful that radiate far.

c. 253-270 AD

It is not in passing, and tumultuously, that one must handle so serious and venerable a study. It must be a deliberate and settled action.

1580

I am not one of those for whom commitment takes the place of reason.

1695

The ideas of relation, such as that of 'father', are often clearer and more distinct than the ideas of the substances to which they belong, such as that of 'man'.

1689

Etruscan artist

Pair of bronze handles with satyrs

Pair of bronze handles with satyrs

early 5th century BCE

The perfection of science would be to see all possible facts arise from a single cause.

1801

Little by little, everyone, following each other's example, will consume more and more.

1776

If crises first bring forth revolutions on the Continent, the cause of these is always to be found in England.

1850

I find no more worthy homage to the Divinity than that mute admiration which the contemplation of His works excites [...].

1782-1789

Cypriot artist

Terracotta warriors

Terracotta warriors

6th century BCE(?)

God is love, and He is an object of love: the whole contribution of mysticism is there.

1932

You may find cities without walls, [...] without currency, [...] without theaters [...]. But you would not name one that does not recognize something sacred and divine [...].

1st Century A.D.

The bonds that exist between [man and his totem] are much more like those that unite members of the same family; animals and men are made of the same flesh [...].

1912

With tragedy, the Hellene lost faith in his own immortality; [...] not only faith in an ideal past, but also faith in an ideal future.

1872

Roman Artist

Top of a marble funerary relief with portrait busts of a young man and an elderly woman

Top of a marble funerary relief with portrait busts of a young man and an elderly woman

ca. 138–141 CE

There is no pleasure for [decent people] without propriety.

1732

A good [leader] never has weapons that are too short; what they lack in length, their bravery knows how to supplement.

1636

we will fulfill all the duties that humanity inspires in us.

1627

Does it make men better? Alas! We see that everywhere it divides them, it sets them at odds, it makes them intolerant, it forces them to be the executioners of their brothers.

1766

Italian (Marchigian?) Painter

The Annunciation

The Annunciation

1400

Take away ideas, you take away truths, for it is evident that truths are only the relationships that exist between ideas.

1707

In a civil dissension, [...] votes should be weighed, not counted.

54-51 BC

Where truth and nature are, there also is prudence; where truth and nature are, there also is confidence.

c. 108 AD

To be a 'great writer,' to take one's place on the summits, among the finest representatives of humanity, what a burden and how to accept it without trembling?

1926

Johann Esaias Nilson

Portrait of a Man

Portrait of a Man

1741

Those who know nature do not try to express it in words; and those who try, thereby show that they do not know.

4th century BC

Therefore, tend to your soul's health as a priority; let the health of the body come second.

63-64 AD

As many types of government, so many types of authority.

329-323 BC

I confess that it would be easier for me to concede matter and extension to the soul, than the capacity to move a body and be moved by it, to an immaterial being.

1643-1649

Greek Artist

Painted limestone funerary slab with a soldier taking a kantharos from his attendant

Painted limestone funerary slab with a soldier taking a kantharos from his attendant

2nd half of 3rd century BCE

'Where' (ubi) admits neither more, nor less, nor contrariety.

c. 1270

Neither intelligence nor pleasure can be the good, if they are lacking something.

c. 360 BC

It would be [...] glorious for any citizen to publicly expose a candidate's flaws, so that the people [...] could form a sounder judgment.

1513-1519

One of two things is true: either the thing one mocks deserves mockery, or it does not.

c. 1660

Jean Bellegambe

Charles de Saint-Radegonde, called Charles Coguin, Abbot of Anchin

Charles de Saint-Radegonde, called Charles Coguin, Abbot of Anchin

ca. 1511–20

What a monstrous vice is this which does not even deserve to be called cowardice, which finds no name vile enough, which nature disavows having made and the tongue refuses to name?

c. 1552-1553

The characteristic feature of Wagner's thought is its astonishing unity: a unity that connects writings from different eras [...] through the commonality of the point of view.

1896

One of the greatest problems of education is to reconcile, under a legitimate constraint, submission with the ability to use one's freedom.

1797-1798

Amidst the apparent diversity of human affairs, it is not impossible to find a small number of generative facts from which all others derive.

1835-1840

Johannes Lingelbach

Peasants Dancing

Peasants Dancing

1651

This feeling, when disinterested, and connecting itself with the pure idea of duty [...] forms the essence of Conscience.

1861

It is our will and pleasure that the lanterns at the corners and in the middle of the streets [...] be preserved there, as is customary.

1662

It is a great dream that this One being dreams: a dream, but a dream of such a kind that all its characters dream it with him. Hence it is that everything is in everything, that everything fits with everything.

1836

However, enthusiasm will always be a kind of virtue.

1762

Etruscan artist

Bronze bowl from a thymiaterion (incense burner)

Bronze bowl from a thymiaterion (incense burner)

late 4th century BCE

Agree [...] that we often act according to what we want, but that we never want except according to what we feel, or according to what we think.

1746

Philosophy has but few true followers; and even over them it has only a very weak and very limited authority.

1742

Christ did not say: 'I am orthodoxy.' He said: 'I am the truth.'

1957

Simplicity in a subject and in an image is a perfection relative to the weakness of our mind.

1758

French Painter

Monsieur de Bellefourière

Monsieur de Bellefourière

1521