Abundance of production is sometimes a sign of strength [...] but sometimes it is also a sign of weakness; the pyramid collapses and its builder remains suffocated beneath the rubble.
1926
Man necessarily felt before judging. [...] he made particular propositions before making general ones.
1817
Philosophers, to account for the phenomena of sight, have supposed that we form certain judgments of which we have no consciousness.
1746
Cadmus was changed into a serpent; Aaron's rod also became a serpent.
1764
Bronze statuette of a goddess
1st–2nd century CE
all individuals are comic as individuals and, therefore, not tragic.
1872
Society [...] practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since [...] it penetrates much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaves the soul itself.
1859
The things that the celestial gods produce do not result from a free choice, but from a natural necessity, because they act, as parts of the universe, upon the other parts of the universe.
c. 253-270 AD
...in a wise, hardworking, just, courageous man [...] poverty is but the mark of a lofty spirit and a magnanimous heart.
100-120 AD
Allegory of the Catholic Faith
ca. 1670–72
Habit is to action what generality is to thought.
1896
It is not commerce and industry that suggest the taste for material enjoyments to men, but rather this taste that leads men toward industrial and commercial careers.
1835-1840
When an act that [...] is bound to conform to a moral rule deviates from it, society [...] intervenes to obstruct this deviation. It reacts actively against its author.
1893
With his ears full of music and his mouth full of delicacies, the upstart is not happy. The worry of maintaining his position makes him like a beast of burden endlessly climbing the same slope.
4th century BC
Upper part of a limestone warrior from a chariot group
first half of the 6th century BCE
There are then in the soul, it seems, false pleasures, which only ridiculously imitate the true ones [...].
c. 360 BC
There are neither talents, nor wisdom, nor solid pleasures in the heart of error.
1746
Truth [...] means nothing other than the joining or separating of signs, according as the Things themselves agree or disagree with one another.
1689
I resolved to seek no other knowledge than that which could be found in myself, or else in the great book of the world.
1637
The Sofa
ca. 1894–96
...one may very often find opportunities to be lit for free, by following the [...] lantern-bearers when they are lighting other people.
1662
As long as I act freely I am good and do only good; but as soon as I feel the yoke, whether of necessity or of men, I become rebellious or rather restive, then I am nothing.
1776-1778
It is absolutely necessary that this world be connected without discontinuity [...] to the higher revolutions, so that its entire powerful order is governed by these revolutions.
c. 334 BC
If it is not easy to define wit, one can at least decide [...] that it is a quality agreeable to others, & which [...] inspires joy in all those who are able to feel its worth.
1751
The French Comedians
ca. 1720
Whoever is without honor and without temper [...] is a perfect courtier.
1758
How many events it is enough to predict for them to take place.
1623
This mathematical calculation of the unknown motion of a celestial body [...] awaits its confirmation from future observations.
1755
[A political treatise deals with] natural right.
1677
Pendant in the form of a fish
3900 BCE - 100 CE
Rashness is never allied with wisdom, and chance is not admitted to the counsels of prudence.
46 BC
Wit says pretty things and only does small ones.
c. 1763
It is a mistake to imagine that, among great personages, new benefits cause old injuries to be forgotten.
1855
There is nothing more comfortable than not thinking.
1940
Portrait of a Man in Royal Livery
1532–35
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
Men are indifferent regarding the stability of the earth [...] but they are not at all indifferent to these opinions when they are upheld by those they hate.
1674-1675
No reasonable being can find their own particular good except by doing something useful for all.
c. 108 AD
With regard to great faults, one does not suppress the knowledge of them; one only suspends it for a time.
1636
Sunset after a Storm on the Coast of Sicily
1853
'The poet is the conscious voice of what is unconscious in us.'
1896
The surest way to deceive men and to perpetuate their prejudices is to deceive them in childhood.
1766
God, in His knowledge of the future, predicted the disbelief [...] without being its author; for God forces no man to sin, simply because He foresees the sins men will commit.
1263-1264
I would rather be in hardship than in softness; [...] to live harshly, to suffer and to work.
63-64 AD
Allegory of the Arts
1742
The dream, on the contrary, is like something entirely foreign, like something which, like the external world, imposes itself upon us without our participation, and even against our will.
1836
The demand [for order and tranquility] is the one which, everywhere and always, predominates in this class after violent upheavals and the resulting commercial disturbances.
1851-1852
In our souls, although there are diverse movements that stir it, there must be one that holds the field.
1580
[Some] at least doubt whether souls are not material and naturally perishable.
1715-1716
Bronze crab
3rd–1st century BCE