Our structure, both public and private, is full of imperfection. But there is nothing useless in nature; not even uselessness itself.
1580
Sight is the sense of the understanding, which is intuitive, and hearing is the sense of reason, which thinks and conceives.
1819
I beg [...] to forgive me, if I write nothing here but very confusedly.
1643-1649
He had said: I think, therefore I am: he should have said more exactly: I feel, therefore I am.
1805
Peasants Dancing and Feasting
ca. 1660
The text of the first edition [...] represents the initial form of the author's thought.
1643-1662
I then saw clearly [...] that nothing is more conducive to success than not desiring it too ardently.
1893
How shall the Mind, which perceives nothing but its own ideas, know that they agree with things themselves?
1689
He wanted to speak to him, and his voice was lost.
1764
Woman at a Balcony
1887–88
As long as the heart of man is as it is, it will never be totally indifferent to the well-being of humanity.
1751
Society has made man weaker, not only by taking away the right he had over his own strength, but especially by making it insufficient for him.
1762
In art, geometry intervenes to halt and symmetrize the exuberances of life.
1926
It is to repel people unnecessarily to act in this manner, so that he may henceforth proceed with a little more moderation.
1686
Bronze handle of a hydria (water jar)
4th century BCE
Has it been noticed that music sets the mind free? That it gives wings to thought? That one becomes more of a philosopher the more one is a musician?
1888
[Freedom of thought] must be repressed with the greatest rigor; the Priests are paid to think, the faithful have nothing to do but to pay handsomely those who think for them.
1768
One must exhort the living to imitate the virtue of the dead and to console their descendants.
c. 387 BC
[He] could, in good conscience, have two wives, [...] by virtue of a dispensation from the law, which would only cost him a hundred thousand écus.
circa 1748
Study Head of a Young Woman
ca. 1618–20
The knowledge of all the opinions [...] of other men [...] is not so much a science as a history.
1674-1675
All selfish tendencies, the cult of self, the unjust preference for oneself [...] have their source and root in the current constitution of the relationship between man and woman.
1869
When, after an induction made for several terms, the adversary does not grant the universal, it is then fair to ask the adversary for his objection.
End of the 4th century BC
[The government] constantly justified the suspicions [...] of the more revolutionary parties and constantly conjured up [...] the spectre of the old despotism.
1851-1852
Limestone male figure in Egyptian dress
mid-6th century BCE
A divided city is half taken.
c. 1552-1553
When something seems impossible to obtain [...], it indicates an insurmountable limit at that level and the necessity of a change of level, of breaking through a ceiling.
1947
There is no difference between letting one's passion be seen, and lending certain weapons for others to make themselves our master.
1636
The public did not see that it was they who were contracting a debt when the sovereign borrowed.
1776
Bead ornaments in the form of female head
6th–5th century BCE
A thing is denominated by habitus because the habitus is adjacent to some specific integral part, as a man is said to be shod by his feet.
c. 1270
He is certainly to be pitied who unites himself with perishable things, for these things being beyond his power [...], it is impossible that, when they are affected, he himself should remain free.
c. 1660
If it is good for you to drink it, then drink it; [...] If it is good for you, and you drink it, do not speak of it before those who do not like things done differently from them.
c. 108 AD
The premature death of those in whom we placed the most flattering hopes throws us into a kind of dread; but how often, perhaps, is this not the greatest favor of heaven!
1760
Male head wearing a helmet
ca. 600 BCE
The rampart that protected his life, the instrument that made his success, was his eloquence...
100-120 AD
The most ridiculous and boldest hopes have often been the cause of extraordinary successes.
1746
Men must attempt everything and be frightened of nothing, because God protects those who have courage [...].
1512-1527
How many are there [...] who respect authority [...] when they see another, easier path to achieve honors and all the objects of their ambition?
59 BC
Marble head of a bearded man
late 4th century BCE
How short and troubled is the life of those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear for the future!
c. 49 AD
Would not the error of empiricism be [...] to over-intellectualize the general belief in the law of causality, to consider it in its relation to science, and not in its relation to life?
1900
The world is an organized and living being, an animal, [...] and full of a great Soul in which all particular souls are contained.
c. 253-270 AD
In the body of Tuo the Ugly, there lived a perfect latent virtue. It was this virtue that drew people to him, despite the repulsive form of his body.
4th century BC
The Marriage of the Virgin
ca. 1479
It is a sophism which consists in concluding from the fact that we give the same name to very different phenomena, that they are identical or similar.
1623
As a result of their mutual dependence, what affects one affects others, and thus any somewhat serious change takes on a general interest.
1893
An individual can be moderate in his desires, be content with what he possesses; a body is always ambitious.
1772
An image remains essentially an image everywhere, whether sculpted and painted, or simply imaginative [...] and in adoring the god it represents, one cannot help but adore it at the same time.
1841
Mrs. Ralph Izard (Alice De Lancey, 1746/47–1832)
1747