There can be no doubt that we are naturally free, since we are all companions, and it cannot enter anyone's mind that nature has placed anyone in servitude [...].
c. 1552-1553
Sickness is the natural state of the Christian.
1670
Those who have examined things the least are the most obstinate.
1689
The great remedy for anger is time. Do not demand that it forgive at first, but that it judge. It dissipates if it only waits.
c. 41 AD
A Spanish Garden
1871
People who resemble one another cannot live together without each feeling a sympathy for their fellows that opposes any act likely to cause them suffering.
1893
Must we therefore entrust the practice of all virtues of this class to the sure, though blind, instinct of feeling and taste?
1751
The 'power of the people over themselves' does not express the true state of the case; [...] self-government [...] is not the government of each by himself, but of each by all the rest.
1859
To create imaginatively is to solve a problem. Now, how does one solve a problem otherwise than by first supposing it to be solved?
1919
A Patrician Couple
1730
For to be possessed of a good mind is not enough; the prime requisite is to apply it well.
1637
Let us beware of saying that there are laws in nature. There are only necessities: there is no one who commands, no one who obeys, no one who transgresses.
1882
The error [...] of all literary criticism [...] is to absolutely want to find the man in the work.
1926
One must not grieve over the cessation of personality as if it were a misfortune. [...] The physical self has ceased to be [...] but the transcendent self remains.
4th century BC
Portrait of a Young Woman
1603
What a pity one cannot do without them!
1775-1784
As soon as one departs ever so slightly from the opinion of certain doctors, they erupt in thunder and lightning.
1686
Universal suffrage had declared itself [...] directly opposed to the domination of the bourgeoisie; the bourgeoisie answered by outlawing universal suffrage.
1851/1852
It is true that the debts were extinguished: but the taxes remained; and they were accumulated [...].
1776
Bronze axe head
ca. 2500–1900 BCE
Man cannot abdicate his personality as long as there are duties for him, and consequently as long as he lives.
1797-1798
Only small minds pay attention to everything: theirs is a small garden that they easily keep tidy.
18th century
Those who say that there is never any excess in virtue, because it is no longer virtue if there is excess in it, are merely playing with words.
1580
[It was agreed...] that he would be exposed to all the inconveniences, and to all the evils to which men are subject.
1518-1527
Bronze thymiaterion (incense burner)
ca. 325–275 BCE
Justice is the feeling of a soul in love with order, and which is content with its own.
1746
You must absolutely and completely be in your soul [...] free or a slave, enlightened or ignorant.
c. 108 AD
This power, divided between two rivals, maintained the balance [...]; but as soon as it was united and weighed entirely on a single point, it had no counterweight, and ended up shaking the republic and overthrowing it completely.
100-120 AD
It is not a flaw in a limited mind to not know certain things; it is only a flaw to judge them. Ignorance is a necessary evil, but one can and must avoid error.
1674-1675
Limestone cippus of Olympos
ca. 2nd–3rd century CE
I was not asking you only about the courage of infantry [...], but of all kinds of soldiers; and not only in war, but also in the face of perils by sea, disease, and poverty...
c. 380 BC
A sort of morality peculiar to disorder has formed among us, and a special code for riot days. According to these exceptional laws, murder is tolerated, [...] but theft is severely forbidden.
1893
Is fire anything other than an element that gives us light, warms us, and burns us?
1764
A religion that was clear would soon be finished; our sacred interpreters would have nothing to tell us if God had spoken too clearly.
1768
Mademoiselle Nys
1899
The condition [of advisors] is unfortunate [...] when they advise a present sacrifice whose advantages are certain and lasting but distant.
1623
True education consists less in precepts than in exercises.
1762
Paul [...] teaches that no one can glory in their works, but in faith alone [...]. James, on the contrary, says [...] that man is justified by his works and not by faith alone.
1670
Some are born virtuous, it is true; but care, reflection, and effort can give to others what nature has denied them.
1636
Head of marble colossal female statue
17th century?
[...] virtue is the natural instinct for good guided by reason; because then it is at once [...] a thing worthy of esteem and praise.
4th century BC
The study of ourselves is the most important of all for us.
1817
[Ariston of Chios] founded a sect, but it was short-lived.
45 BC
The love that God has for me is nothing other than my own self-love deified and personified.
1841
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1800
The fact that they [parties] exist is by no means a reason to preserve them. Only the good is a legitimate reason for preservation.
1940
A fact of this nature can only be understood metaphysically; physically, it is an impossibility.
1836
If a being can by its nature be sympathetically affected by another being, it does not follow that the medium [...] shares the affection.
c. 253-270 AD
To his triple denial corresponds a triple confession; his tongue must become the organ of his love as it was of his fear.
1263-1264
Fragment of a statuette of a woman
4th–3rd centuries BCE