The diseases of the mind are not cured otherwise [than with time].
c. 1552-1553
The study of ourselves is the most important of all for us.
1817
The path of precept is long; that of example is short and effective.
63-64 AD
If you cultivate [the faculty of using your impressions], if you see in it alone all that is yours, you will never be hindered or thwarted; you will never weep.
c. 108 AD
Engraving
18th century
Victorious in a great number of battles, [he] never left anything for fortune to claim over his ability.
100-120 AD
The mystery of the miracle.
1841
The unfavorable opinion one has of the people stems only from the freedom with which one can speak ill of them without fear, [...] whereas one cannot speak of princes without a thousand dangers.
1855
Mastery is reached when one neither makes a mistake nor hesitates in the execution.
1881
Monsieur de Bellefourière
1521
Moments are very precious in war, and in love.
1764
If [fatal necessity] is once granted, all law, all virtue, all religion are cut off at their root.
1661-1676
Far from being discouraged by our powerlessness, we should rather be frightened by the extent of our power.
1922
Man is extremely subject to error; the illusions of his senses, the visions of his imagination, and the abstractions of his mind deceive him at every moment.
1674-1675
Lower right corner of a marble sarcophagus, illustrating the discovery of Achilles by Odysseus on the island of Skyros
ca. 160–180 CE
To take a vow of obedience is to renounce the inalienable prerogative of man: liberty.
1760
The equilibrium between a gaseous mass and a liquid column is only a particular case of the equilibrium observed between two liquid columns in communicating vessels.
1663
Softness had, in the course of a long peace, weakened the nation's courage, pleasures had corrupted it, [...] and adversity alone could reawaken the ancient virtue.
1746
Those who have stolen a little are locked in prisons. Those who have stolen a lot are seated on thrones.
4th century BC
A Kitchen
ca. 1643
Delaying [a project] that is to become the first successful example [...] is the same as sowing the seed before maturity, and later harvesting weeds.
1777
The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest people of past centuries who were their authors.
1637
We cannot expect women to devote themselves to the emancipation of their sex, as long as men [...] are not prepared to join them in undertaking it.
1869
Above all these gods reigns the God par excellence, the absolute Good, principle of all that is divine, source of the divinity of the other gods.
c. 253-270 AD
Portrait of a Woman
late 1560s
Our political constitution is an aristocracy, which has the approval of the multitude.
c. 387 BC
Wretch who understands nothing, who knows nothing. Come with me and I will teach you things you do not suspect.
1942
We can only know the use of our organs after having employed them. Only long experience can teach us to make the most of ourselves [...].
1762
There are a multitude of acts that we do of our own free will, before having thought and reflected upon them.
4th century BC
Olivier Journu (1724–1783)
1756
For it is to punish you that I now forgive you.
1580
It is commonly sufficient that a hypothesis is found a posteriori, because it satisfies the phenomena; but when one also has reasons for it a priori, so much the better.
1695
When men aggrandize the idea of their divinity, this exaltation, most often, only bears upon power and intelligence; goodness is forgotten [...].
1757
To be happy, one must have desires, satisfy them with some difficulty, but, the effort made, be sure to enjoy them.
1772
Bathsheba at Her Bath
ca. 1700
Patriotism, if it claims to assert itself in the field of science, is a very nasty scoundrel that must be kicked out the door.
1905
The soul is first that which gives us life, [...] that which gives us sensation, [...] that which gives us movement, [...] that which gives us intelligence.
1270
Anaxagoras [...] is the first to have philosophized in Athens.
45 BC
For how many great captains have iron and fire sometimes succeeded less than a cleverly placed witticism?
1636
Frescoes from the Villa Stati-Mattei
1501
The condition of each man is a solution in hieroglyphics to the questions he would put.
1836
Real sympathies exist only between similar people; and in aristocratic centuries, one sees one's equals only in the members of one's caste.
1835-1840
As soon as a party has pushed the revolution far enough that it can no longer follow it, [...] it is set aside by its more audacious allies [...]. The revolution thus follows an ascending line.
1851/1852
[It is the sophism of those] who believe they can explain diverse phenomena by assimilating them to those with which they have been most occupied.
1623
Limestone statue of a male votary holding a bird in the left hand
ca 500–450 BCE
[...] the greatest probability never amounts to certainty, without which there can be no true Knowledge.
1689
Trade will be like a river, which would distribute itself into a multitude of channels, to successively water all the lands. This revolution will only end to begin again.
1776
We are free when our acts emanate from our entire personality, when they express it, when they have that indefinable resemblance to it which we sometimes find between the work and the artist.
1889
To say that God revealed himself only to announce mysteries is to say that God revealed himself only to remain unknown, [...] to confuse our minds, to increase our ignorance and our uncertainties.
1766
Spear-butt, spike
ca. 1050–1000 BCE