On the role that money plays [...]
1864-1866
A true Religion must be for all times and for all places; it must be like the light of the sun, which illuminates all peoples and all generations.
1764
Few people have a mind deep enough to reconcile so many truths, and to strip them of the errors with which they are mixed.
1746
The spirit of science is [...] a universal spirit, [...] the nameless spirit, neither Christian nor pagan.
1842-1845
Stone spindle whorl
ca. 2400–1900 BCE
Each party kicks from behind at the one driving forward and leans over the one driving back. No wonder that in this ridiculous posture it loses its balance.
1851/1852
If the soul did not act upon the body, and if the body [...] yet conformed to the soul's will [...], it would be a perpetual miracle.
1715-1716
When one passes away with a healthy body and a soul full of tenderness, how could one not be an object of regret?
4th century BC
The man whose heart is alive acts upon other living hearts, like the sun which gives life to the world.
4th century BC
Spatula or curette
7000 BCE - 330 CE
The food that would satisfy a dwarf [...] would only whet the appetite of a giant.
1636
The only punishment capable of punishing [the oppressor] [...] is a transformation of the meaning of greatness so total that he is excluded from it. [...] To contribute to this transformation, one must have accomplished it in oneself.
1943
One pays dearly for being immortal: one must die several times while still alive.
1888
To honor a cruel despotism [with the title of government] is to give the name of government to a confederation of thieves.
1772
Standing tambourine player
ca. 600–480 BCE
So many men, so many boroughs, so many cities, so many nations sometimes endure a single tyrant, who has no power other than that which they give him.
c. 1552-1553
A revelation that were true [...] ought to be clear enough to be understood by all of humankind. Is the Bible so clear?
1766
One needs [...] such strong reasons to live, that none are needed to die.
1926
Away with this insane and impossible contempt for all sensible things, for all external objects! This is not how nature speaks; I recognize no other language here than that of pride.
1742
Carlo Rimbotti (1518–1591)
1548
To say that the same internal causes produce the same effects is to suppose that the same cause can present itself several times on the stage of consciousness.
1889
we have no clear idea of our soul.
1674-1675
I never read Cicero [...] without being struck to the point of believing that there was something divine in the soul from which these works came to us.
45 BC
What patricians have most at heart is to keep the most worthy citizens out of the council and to choose as colleagues people who have no will but their own.
1677
Terracotta appliqué
3rd century BCE
To feel is a phenomenon of our organization [...] and to think is nothing but to feel.
1801
The soul [...] is the first act of an organized physical body.
1270
Not all men are capable of friendship.
1770
Perception is the first Faculty of the Soul that is occupied with our Ideas. It is also the first and simplest idea that we receive by means of Reflection.
1689
Portrait of a Woman
late 1560s
There are no men so dull and stupid [...] that they cannot arrange different words together, and compose a discourse by which to make their thoughts understood.
1637
[We flatter ourselves that they will do so] all the more willingly, as the service we ask for is honorable.
1498
The wife is actually the slave of her husband, no less, within the limits of legal obligation, than are slaves properly so called.
1869
Was it with such speeches that great States grew? [...] With convictions that servitude is no more a shame than an honor, and freedom no more an honor than a shame?
c. 108 AD
Bronze jug
ca. 1st century BCE–1st century CE
As many types of government, so many types of authority.
329-323 BC
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
Others skim over everything, and attach themselves only to the bulk of events.
1623
We may then well call them barbarians, in respect to the rules of reason, but not in respect to ourselves, who surpass them in every kind of barbarity.
1580
Portrait of a Woman, Said to Be Marie de Mautesson
ca. 1830
[The man born blind] put his hand to it and was astonished not to find [...] those solid bodies [...]. He asked which was the deceiver, the sense of touch, or the sense of sight.
1746
Do you want to know why nothing relieves you in your sad flight? You are fleeing with yourself.
63-64 AD
Almost all small States, whether republics or monarchies, prosper for the sole reason that they are small.
1762
It would be impossible for there to be any failure in the world if the principles were not excellent; [...] there could be no disorder if there were not a primary and invariable rule.
c. 253-270 AD
Portrait of a Young Woman with a Fan
1633
The imagination may perhaps be excused if it sometimes raves [...]. But that the understanding, whose business it is to think, should instead rave, is something that can never be forgiven.
1783
...those who are, like me, voluntarily poor, should glory in it.
100-120 AD
However different the acts so qualified may seem at first glance, it is impossible that they do not have some common ground. For they affect the moral conscience of nations everywhere in the same way.
1893
By our special grace, full power, and royal authority, we have [...] granted the power, faculty, permission, and privilege to have and to establish...
1662
Portrait head of philosopher ?
4th century BCE