After having partly exhausted the combinations of the beautiful, [artists] substitute the singular for it, which we prefer to the beautiful, because it makes a newer impression on us.
1758
[He] preferred to rush into the unknown [...] rather than abdicate a single particle of his independence.
1896
Whoever conquers a state accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it, may expect to be destroyed by it.
1855
If we consider the objects of the senses [...] as mere phenomena, we thereby acknowledge that a thing in itself underlies them, although we do not know what it is [...].
1783
Handle attachment
900 BCE - 100 BCE
Fundamentally, nutrition is identical and merges with growth; but their being is different.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Happy unions are rare, precisely because it is in the essence of marriage to place its main purpose in the future generation, and not in the present one.
1819
There can be unjust laws, and therefore law cannot be the supreme criterion of justice.
1861
No generous mind stops within itself. It always aims for and goes beyond its strength.
1580
Portrait of a Woman
1775
And who is it that tells you that you have faculties equal to those of Jupiter?
c. 108 AD
Never in this universe is there an equality of dimension between an obligation and its object. The obligation is an infinite, the object is not.
1943
What motive would one have to extol an action, a character, if one agrees at the same time that these things are good for nothing?
1751
If the dogmas [...] are mysteries inaccessible to reason; if the God [...] is an inconceivable God, we should not be surprised to see that [...] this religion maintains an unintelligible and mysterious tone.
1766
Pietà
ca. 1657–60
It is doubtless that we owe everything we are to the ability to communicate with our fellow beings.
1801
Pure Nothing can no more produce a real Being than the same Nothing can be equal to two right angles.
1689
no protection has ever preserved a Book from the blows of Criticism.
1627
Our homeland is on the heights, the path that leads to it is humble: he who refuses to follow the path, seeks the homeland in vain.
1263-1264
Still Life of Grapes and Peaches
ca. 1617
But, as I do not know them, I cannot explain them, for I have no clear idea of my own mind[...]
1674-1675
Let us only win peace and not worry that it be poor: if we have war, nothing is enough; if we have peace, nothing will be lacking.
c. 1552-1553
A musician who writes and thinks was then nonsense to everyone; they cried out: he is a theorist who wants to transform art with subtle ideas, let him be stoned!
1876
[His supporters] chose him, in fact, not for his value, but for his presumed mediocrity. They thought they had found in him an instrument they could use at their discretion [...]. In this they were very gravely mistaken.
1893
Bronze kyathos (single-handled jug)
ca. 450–400 BCE
What is needed is an analysis, and one is sure to have perfectly analyzed when one is able to recompose.
1900
The Bible does not owe its character as a holy book to the words and discourses it contains, or to the language in which it is written, but to the very things that intelligence discovers in it.
1670
All revolutions perfected this machine instead of smashing it.
1851/1852
If we could trace all primitive nouns back to their source, we would find that there is no abstract noun that does not derive from some adjective or verb.
1746
Limestone lower left leg
4th or 3rd century BCE ?
Scientifically, a conduct is egoistic to the extent that it is determined by feelings and representations that are exclusively personal to us.
1893
Is it not better to break with fortune at the right time, than to be struck by an unforeseen blow that throws one from the top of the wheel?
1636
[Love] is that insatiable and infinite desire of the soul, [...] itself moved by a perpetual and never-satiated desire.
c. 253-270 AD
The Analysis of the Laws of nature, and the search for causes, leads us to God [...].
1697
Buckle with lion and boar
1st–3rd century CE
...so that those who do not have servants and torches [...] can retire to their homes, at any hour they please, and be guided and lit wherever they see fit.
1662
Your presence is the only good I wish for, the only need I feel when I am deprived of it.
1796
It is not enough for the soul to be lodged in the human body, like a pilot in his ship, [...] but it must be more closely joined and united with it, to [...] compose a true man.
1637
We only count an individual's years when there is nothing else about them that counts.
1870
Fragmentary marble inscription
ca. 425–424 BCE
Where will I find these connections, if not in the study of myself and the knowledge of men [...]?
1746
I had believed until then that there was nothing on earth so beautiful as [...]; I have been disillusioned.
1759
Nothing is more dangerous than the influence of private interests in public affairs.
1762
Good upbringing and education, these are the sources of virtue.
c. 387 BC
Portrait of a Man
1703
There is a word without words... Sometimes there is no need for words...
4th century BC
The best course is therefore to receive him and have him killed [...]. A dead man does not bite.
100-120 AD
We can acquire all these advantages [of Rhetoric] by joining the study of precepts with the diligent practice of exercises.
86-82 BC
When it comes to spending time, we are lavish to the point of excess with the one thing in which it is honorable to be stingy.
c. 49 AD
Lead figure of a goddess with spear and aegis, possibly Athena
6th–5th century BCE