The first [way] consists in a mutual influence; the second is to assign a skilled craftsman to them who adjusts them [...] at all times; the third is to manufacture them with such art and precision that one can be assured of their agreement.
1696
Thus he is always divided and contrary to himself.
1670
Only things related to inspiration are nourished by delay. Those related to natural duty, to the will, cannot suffer delay.
1947
As long as you worry and trouble yourself about it, can you believe yourself sufficiently convinced of the true goods and the true evils?
c. 108 AD
Bronze jug
ca. 1st century BCE–1st century CE
We blush to learn wisdom; but [...] we must not expect such a great good to fall into our hands by chance.
63-64 AD
Disorders of the imagination are extremely contagious, and [...] slip and spread into most minds with great ease.
1674-1675
Man in the State [...] has entirely renounced his wild, lawless freedom in order to find his freedom in general, intact, in a lawful dependency, that is, in a juridical state.
1797
The great cities are teeming with people whom misery has made industrious.
1748
Lead figure of a woman
late 7th–early 6th century BCE
The food that would satisfy a dwarf [...] would only whet the appetite of a giant.
1636
One must, if possible, resort to the law [...], but if violence annihilates the courts, all that remains is to repress audacity with courage [...] and force with force.
September 57 BC
It is society that has provided the canvas on which logical thought has worked.
1912
What is useful to the public is hardly ever introduced except by force, given that private interests [...] are almost always opposed to it.
1762
Allée of Chestnut Trees
1878
The more incredible and dissonant a divine mystery is, the more honor one gives to God in believing it, and the more glorious is the victory of faith.
1623
The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.
c. 375 BC
It is by no means a question of discovering what being is endowed with this sensibility, nor what is its nature, its beginning, its end, or its ultimate destination.
1817
That no use can be made of them is perhaps the very essence of greatness.
1888
Statue of a man
6th century BCE or later
One finds in it at the same time much wit and little freedom of mind.
1835-1840
God placed the soul in the world so that, seeing the evils of which matter is the principle, it might return to the Father and be forever freed from such contagion.
c. 253-270 AD
No one wants to be pitied for their mistakes.
1747
Men are funny: when no one comes quickly enough to steal their freedom, they steal it themselves.
1926
The Last Token: A Christian Martyr
1860
The contradiction in the existence of God.
1841
[It is] the era when all citizens fall under the dependence of merchants, and when things begin to have a value assessed by a common measure.
1776
Whoever conceives the divine nature only in a confused way does not see that to exist belongs to the nature of God.
1670
If the worker resisted this reduction of his relative wage, he would only be trying to get a share in the increased productivity of his own labor.
1865
Bronze bull
late 5th–early 4th century BCE
One does not realize the vitality of institutions that place right on the side of force; one does not know with what tenacity people cling to them.
1869
As for the pain, I do not take it into account at all; for it is so short.
1643-1649
It is possible at the same time for the like to be increased by the like, and, in another sense, for it to be by the unlike.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Jesus Christ was not king of Israel to impose tributes, to raise and arm troops, but to govern souls and lead them into the kingdom of heaven.
1263-1264
Terracotta head of a youth
4th century BCE
Alas, poor man! You have enough inconveniences that you are forced to endure, without increasing them still more by your own inventions!
1580
If I have voluntarily braved so many dangers [...] it was so that every citizen would have the freedom to uphold the laws.
100-120 AD
The same desire for gain which at first constituted [a nation's] strength and power thus becomes the cause of its ruin.
1772
Death is a crisis — in the strongest sense of the word — a final judgment.
1836
Portrait of a Woman with Tapestry Work
1800
Did I need you to teach me that the body my parents gave me is well-made? Do you think your compliments affect me, when I know you will denigrate me elsewhere more than you have flattered me here?
4th century BC
All prediction is in reality a vision.
1889
God having given man an understanding to direct his actions, has also granted him a freedom of will and liberty of acting.
1690
Montaigne's younger brother [...] later married La Boétie's stepdaughter.
c. 1552-1553
Gold pendant in the form of a lion's head
2nd half of the 5th century BCE
[Some authors] give no other answer to their critics than public approval.
1717
there is always some evil so closely linked to the good that it seems impossible to enjoy one without suffering the drawbacks of the other.
1855
When men depart from the maxims of reason to embrace [...] an artificial life, no one can answer for what will please or displease them.
1751
Under a God who has revealed himself only to confound human reason, everything must be incomprehensible, everything must defy common sense.
1766
The Marriage of the Virgin
ca. 1479