The more joyful and self-assured the mind becomes, the more a person unlearns loud laughter; in its place, an intellectual smile constantly appears [...].
1879
Such is the blessed condition of the intelligible world that in doing nothing it does great things, and in remaining within itself it produces important works.
c. 253-270 AD
[In a system where] force [...] is everything, it leaves no hope for justice. It doesn't even leave the hope of conceiving it in its truth, since thoughts only reflect the relations of force.
1934
The excess of dependence to which the woman is reduced inspires [...] the idea that the law has delivered her to them as their thing, to be used at their discretion.
1869
Marble capital and finial in the form of a sphinx
ca. 530 BCE
You dared to speak thus, O you, of all men the most.... For I do not know what name to give you that would be worthy of your character.
86-82 BC
That which imposes a constraint or a necessity is always a legitimate reason for excuse...
1661-1676
Everyone in Vienna felt that the war against Hungary was directed against the principle of constitutional Government.
1851-1852
The acquisition of our belief in the law of causality is one and the same with the progressive coordination of our tactile impressions with our visual impressions.
1900
Portrait of a Married Couple (Lorenz Kraffter and Honesta Merz?)
1512
In a word, one will perceive without difficulty that Theologians make Religion and that Religion never has anything but Theologians as its object.
1768
Let us compare the impression made on us by the news of a crime [...] with the news of a voluntary death. The first provokes lively indignation [...], the second will arouse sadness and sympathy.
1851
Virtue or personal merit consists in the possession of qualities of the soul which are useful or agreeable, either to the person who possesses them, or to others.
1751
You did not take it, and you were supposed to take it.
1775
Bronze youth
late 5th century BCE
The sensible man agrees that nature [...] is nothing other than our first habit.
1758
When I make a wheel, if I go about it gently, the result will be weak; if I go about it forcefully, the result will be massive; if I go about it, I know not how, the result will conform to my ideal [...]. It's a knack that cannot be expressed.
4th century BC
Christianity adds superfluous evils to inevitable evils, [...] bodily sufferings to sufferings of the soul, natural contrasts to unnatural contrasts.
1842-1845
He is a man [...] devoid of common sense, and has even less courage.
1518
Portrait of a Woman, Said to Be Lady Agnes Anne Wrothesley
1791
Civil history, which by its importance and authority, holds the first rank among human writings.
1623
Among democratic peoples, it is only through association that the citizens' resistance to central power can occur.
1835-1840
A divided city is half taken.
c. 1552-1553
A large population proves nothing in favor of the government: it only proves that the lands are very fertile and [...] cultivated by men who have few needs.
1776
Engraving
18th century
Perpetual peace (the ultimate goal of the whole law of nations) is therefore undoubtedly an impracticable idea. But the political principles which aim at it [...] are not.
1797
The greed of men is insatiable: at first, they are content with two obols; once they have made it a patrimony, their needs increase endlessly [...].
c. 350 BCE
Those to whom God has given religion by a feeling of the heart are blessed [...]. To those who do not have it, we can only give it by reasoning, while waiting for God to give it to them by a feeling of the heart [...].
1670
Most writers [...] use words in a vague and uncertain manner [...] to cover their ignorance or their obstinacy under the obscurity and confusion of terms.
1689
The Missionary's Adventures
ca. 1883
For the wise, 'necessary' and 'ought' are equivalent things.
1710
Where is the good? In our free will. Where is the evil? In our free will. What are the indifferent things? Those which do not depend on our free will.
c. 108 AD
We must not call 'duty', as we do every day, a bitterness and harshness born of our own interest and personal passions.
1580
[Man and child] live in such different worlds that one can only gain knowledge of the other through very rare intuition.
1926
Fragment of a statuette of a woman
4th–3rd centuries BCE
Competition between two organisms is all the more keen the more alike they are. Having the same needs and pursuing the same objects, they find themselves everywhere in rivalry.
1893
You will be virtuous, or despised; I will be respected, or cured.
1761
It is when human intelligence is at the end of its resources and declares its powerlessness that the help of God arrives.
1263-1264
Everything that exists will cease to be, not to perish, but to decompose.
63-64 AD
Fragment of a limestone votive relief with a quadriga (?)
4th century BCE
Cast down by repentance and grief, he did not have the courage, for twenty years, to appear [...] in the public square.
100-120 AD
This very pathetic drama produced the usual effect of wringing the heart and causing abundant tears. There were as many handkerchiefs as spectators.
1758
God's will being entirely in conformity with order and justice, it is enough to have a right to a thing in order to obtain it.
1674-1675
Prosperity [...] is but a fleeting state: it is a kind of game [...] where the most skillful is the one who knows when to quit while they're ahead.
1636
A Peasant with a Bird
1626
[...] a single man will be able to press as hard with this screw as a hundred could do without it, provided only that one subtracts the force required to turn it.
1637
Men's maxims reveal their hearts.
1746
The philosopher is to artists what a pentathlete is to a runner or a wrestler.
End of the 4th century BC
It is therefore in the decomposition of the proposition into its elements that the separation between the brute and the intelligent species par excellence is marked.
1803
Man in a Turban
1632