A modal proposition, which would be one of the best fruits of all logic: if the necessary being is possible, it exists.
Late 17th - early 18th century
I have a singular curiosity [...] to know the soul and the naive judgments of my authors.
1580
The rise and fall of profit and wages express only the proportion in which capitalists and workers share in the product of a day's work [...].
1847
It is not through interests, but through the community of memories and the free sympathy of opinions and tastes, that democracy binds brothers to one another.
1835-1840
The Conversion of Saint Paul
1440
Tragedy is the supreme form of poetry: it shows us the terrible aspect of life.
1819
Happy are the sick if those who treat them prescribe only diet and cold water, leaving the rest to be done by good nature.
1790
The martyrs were never asked: Do you believe in the Gospel of John, or the Gospel of James? The pagans could not base interrogations on books they did not know.
1764
A well-formed opinion on a man's character leads one to judge what his actions might have been.
66 BC
Bronze statuette of an actor
ca. 1st–2nd century CE
It is upon [its] happy return that love breathes [...] a dormant and covered fire that winter concealed within our veins.
1546/1563
It is neither offerings of gold and silver [...] that honor [virtue], it is righteousness and purity of intention.
63-64 AD
His whole duty is to think as he ought; and the order of thought is to begin with oneself, with one's author, and one's end.
1670
I write this to you, not that this matter is very close to my heart, nor that I wish you to put yourself to any trouble or expense for me.
1513-1527
Limestone head of beardless male votary with wreath of leaves
early 2nd century BCE(?)
To know what [a social fact] is objectively, it is not enough to develop the content of the idea we have of it, but we must treat it as an objective fact, observe, and compare.
1893
To leave [one's country] to evade one's duty [...] the moment the fatherland needs us [...] would be criminal and punishable; it would no longer be retirement, but desertion.
1762
The most difficult temptation to resist, in such a life, is that of giving up thinking altogether: one feels so clearly that it is the only way to stop suffering!
1934-1942
One must either run or at least walk in order to fall.
1758
A Woman Ironing
1873
[...] all [sensations] being necessarily pleasant or unpleasant, [the being] is interested in enjoying the ones and avoiding the others.
1754
The wife who does not push her husband forward holds him back.
1869
When one spends too much time traveling, one becomes a stranger in one's own country; and when one is too curious about things that were practiced in past centuries, one remains [...] very ignorant of those practiced in this one.
1637
Does not the adage say: chiseling and polishing are not as good as letting nature act. [...] I let people do as they would, spontaneously, as nature operates.
4th century BC
Pietà
ca. 1657–60
No man can have in his mind a conception of the future [...] it is from our conceptions of the past that we form the future.
1772
It is an honor and a glory to suffer for Jesus Christ. For, a Christian would never consent to suffer death [...] if his spirit were not certain that He is truly God.
1263-1264
[My principle] is founded [...] on the idea we have of the absolutely infinite Being, and not on there being or possibly being beings endowed with three, four, or five attributes.
1661-1676
[...] a soul that seeks divine felicity in the world of the senses is like Narcissus plunging into the abyss to embrace a shadow.
c. 253-270 AD
Portrait of a Man, Said to Be John Durham
ca. 1790
It takes great qualities to make a hero.
1636
The wicked are at bottom the greatest dupes, for they have sacrificed the happiness of enjoying [...] the pleasure of being virtuous, to acquire trifles of no value.
1751
Art alone has the power to transmute this disgust [...] with existence into ideal images, by means of which life is made possible.
1872
A man is best portrayed in his career, in his works, and in his words.
1896
Buckle
7000 BCE - 330 CE
It is very rare for two minds or two hearts to touch without at least one of them feeling a friction.
1926
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
Courage has more resources against misfortunes than reason.
1747
If the Soul does not remember its own thoughts [...] of what use is it to it to think?
1689
Limestone funerary stele of a boy
3900 BCE - 100 CE
The fools, the envious, and the bigots must have risen up against his principles; and that is a great many people...
1773
The more [ideas] extend to a great multitude, the fewer elements they contain specific to each individual.
1817
The intelligible is one thing, the sensible another; [...] the part of the soul that relates to the sensible must be entirely different from that which relates to the intelligible.
4th century BC
The brain is an 'organ of pantomime.' [...] Cerebral phenomena are to mental life what the conductor's gestures are to the symphony: they outline its motor articulations [...].
1919
Limestone plaque with two eyes in relief
480–310 BCE
Others who lack sense [...] pile speech upon speech [...] and lose themselves in endless narrations.
1623
Show only one science in yourself, that of not failing to get what you desire, and not falling into what you want to avoid.
c. 108 AD
The soul of man is, so to speak, a determined quantity or a portion of thought that has limits it cannot exceed.
1674-1675
I would sooner understand a city existing without ground than I could imagine a city that could be organized or maintained after the idea of the Divinity had been completely destroyed within it.
1st Century A.D.
Bronze hydria (water jar)
early 4th century BCE