When one has entered the path of literary comparisons, one would go far, if common sense or taste did not stop you.
1926
Which of us [...] is the friend of the people? Is it you who want [...] to hand citizens over to the executioner, or I, who forbid the defilement of the public assembly by the fatal presence of an executioner?
63 BC
This very thing proves that they [the ideas] were not created by me, and that they must have, outside of me, a subject which is not me [...].
c. 1660
Science is like water. [...] some comes from heaven; others spring from the earth.
1623
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1780
Better an end with horror than a horror without end.
1851/1852
If a [dissenting] opinion is right, [others] are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if it is wrong, they lose an almost equally great benefit: the clearer perception of truth, produced by its collision with error.
1859
There must be something in the cause of the comic that is slightly detrimental [...] to social life.
1900
Man is born free, of a peaceful nature and a friend to rest; to ensure the peaceful enjoyment of his goods, he formerly renounced his independence by contracting a society.
1762
The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche
ca. 1540
This stability of penal law testifies to the strength of resistance of the collective sentiments to which it corresponds.
1893
Every animal is sympathetic to itself. [...] all things will experience common affections insofar as they constitute parts of the one animal.
c. 253-270 AD
Dogmatism [...] is a pillow for sleep, and the end of all animation, although animation is nevertheless the benefit of philosophy.
1796
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
Statuette of a horseman, 3
7th–6th century BCE
If obscure mortals could [...] speak with impunity on these mysteries, the evidence would shine in everyone's eyes.
3rd or 4th century AD
When the administration of a city is given [...] to certain men, and these men are granted [...] privileges that place them personally beyond the reach of the consequences their administration may have [...], administrative oversight may appear to be a necessity.
1856
Poverty is not shameful in itself, but only where it is proof of laziness, intemperance, prodigality, and folly.
100-120 AD
Too much literalness [...] in the printing of posthumous works is [...] another kind of infidelity to the dead: for they themselves, when alive, would in more than one case have revised and modified.
1670
Lieutenant Colonel Paul Pechell (1724–1800)
1747
A beautiful retreat in war brings as much honor as a proud attack.
1636
The State is a creation of nature, as were the first associations, of which it is the end; for the nature of a thing is its end.
c. 350 BCE
I have [...] a kind of growing inner certainty that there is within me a deposit of pure gold to be transmitted. Only experience [...] persuades me more and more that there is no one to receive it.
1957
A free judgment offends the ears of the great.
1574
Chlorite pestle
ca. 1600–1050 BCE
Carry the one with whom you walk if you wish to reach the one with whom you desire to dwell eternally.
1263-1264
When men aggrandize the idea of their divinity, this exaltation, most often, only bears upon power and intelligence; goodness is forgotten [...].
1757
Ten years earlier, this work would have been entirely new; but today the philosophical spirit has made so much progress that one finds few new things in it...
1773
A reasoning is a judgment whose motives are developed; it is, if one may express it so, a judgment in several parts.
1805
Terracotta statuette of a veiled woman
2nd century BCE
The sweetest contentment he had in his whole life [...] was the pleasure he had given his father and his mother [...], preferring their pleasure to his own.
1580
A merchant [...] sent some of this tallow to Catholic countries [...], hoping to sell a great deal of it for church candles; but the priests refused to use it.
1764
It is easy to praise Providence [...], if one has within them these two things: the capacity to understand what happens to each person, and a grateful heart.
c. 108 AD
One shall never manifest by any outward sign what one feels in one's soul: one shall strive to do the very opposite.
16th century
Study for "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte"
1884
Through his art, [the artist] no longer speaks to a public or a people, but only to himself, [...] necessary for such a grandiose dialogue.
1876
The knowledge of all the opinions and judgments of other men [...] is not so much a science as a history.
1674-1675
It often happens that ordinary minds [...] better penetrate the counsels [of others] [...] than do the more elevated ones, who [...] judge matters quite differently than they do.
1643-1649
A voluntary agreement gives [...] political power, to rulers and Princes, for the benefit of their subjects, so that these subjects may possess their own property in safety.
1690
Woman Sewing
1909
To have glory and youth at the same time is too much for a mortal. Our existence is so poor that its goods must be distributed more sparingly.
1851
Style, in its origin, was poetic; since it began by painting ideas with the most perceivable images, and was moreover extremely measured.
1746
We apply ourselves to chemistry, to astronomy, [...] as if we had nothing more important to know.
1746
it follows that, apart from man, there would be nothing substantial in the visible world, because substantial unity requires a being that is [...] indivisible, and naturally indestructible [...].
1686
Picrolite figure
ca. 3900–2500 BCE
'Our sympathies go to the vanquished hero, not the victorious one'.
1896
All that exists in the universe is the product of the mixture of the infinite and the finite.
c. 360 BC
Whoever holds to their freedom must renounce the comforts of the body. Whoever holds to their life must renounce dignities. Whoever holds to union with the Principle must renounce all attachment.
4th century BC
Morality is not yet a science; for one will not honor with this name a jumble of incoherent and contradictory precepts.
1772
Marble head of a youth
4th century BCE