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
[Such] variations [in theories] already indicate that there is something arbitrary in these divisions, and that they are not manifestly commanded by the facts.
1801
Each person can only truly understand and appreciate that which is homogeneous to them.
1851
When you blame Providence for something, examine it closely, and you will see that what happened was logical.
c. 108 AD
The Meditation on the Passion
ca. 1490
Sit as little as possible; do not trust any idea that was not born in the open air and of free movement.
1888
With a little work one is sure to make bread, but with much study it is very doubtful that one will succeed in making a reasonable man.
1750
The esteem or contempt attached to the same kinds of intellect is, among different peoples, always the effect of the different form of their government, and [...] of the diversity of their interests.
1758
God has not been so ungenerous with His favors to men that, being content to make them two-legged creatures, He left it to Aristotle to make them rational creatures.
1689
Terracotta mold of a grotesque figure
2nd–1st century BCE
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
Ulysses is true wisdom, which, without being captivated by material charms [...], turns all its desires towards the heavens.
c. 253-270 AD
[A monarch] applied himself solely to marking his reign by the perfect felicity of his People.
1627
...to occupy oneself only with imitating those who, in looking at the greenness of a wood, the colors of a flower, the flight of a bird [...] persuade themselves that they are thinking of nothing.
1643-1649
Sebastián Martínez y Pérez (1747–1800)
1792
All good maxims are in the world, [...] one only has to apply them; but that is very difficult.
1746
You claim that every substantial form is indivisible, indestructible, and ungenerable, and can only be produced by a true creation.
1686
Among all errors, the most shameful is that which is committed regarding the intellect, by means of which we are made to avoid error and to know the truth.
1270
It is impossible to honor those one despises, nor to willingly obey those one hates and holds in horror.
c. 1552-1553
Domestic Scene
1775
This true method [...] would consist of two main things: [...] to use no term whose meaning has not first been clearly explained; [and] never to advance any proposition that is not demonstrated by truths already known.
circa 1658
The happiness of others is like a house that rises higher than their own. If they could remove what obstructs their view, they would ask for nothing more.
c. 72-126 AD
We trust the speaker because of the qualities he appears to have: if we see in him merit, goodwill, or both.
329-323 BC
The working classes, [...] barely awakening, not to a knowledge, but to a mere instinct of their social position and their own line of political conduct, could only make themselves heard by means of noisy demonstrations.
1851-1852
Limestone statuette of a beardless male votary with a wreath of leaves
late 5th or early 4th century BCE
it seemed to me that six weeks was shorter than a month and a half.
1759-1774
Among the infinite number of problems that present themselves [...], to choose those whose solution is of interest to man is the merit of wisdom.
1766
If our body is the matter to which our consciousness applies itself, it is coextensive with our consciousness, it includes everything we perceive, it reaches to the stars.
1932
By what rewards or by what threats will you persuade someone to love what they hate, or to hate what they love?
1677
Upper part of a female limestone votary
2nd or 3rd quarter of the 6th century BCE
Take away ideas, you take away truths, for it is evident that truths are only the relationships that exist between ideas.
1707
All that can be said of domestic despotism applies to political despotism.
1869
[Religious wars are] salutary & copious bleedings that the Physicians of our souls prescribe for the bodies of nations, whom God wishes to favor with a very pure doctrine.
1768
He who does not know to which port he is steering has no favorable wind.
63-64 AD
Two gutti from a group of fragments from the Temple of Apollo at Phigaleia (Bassae)
5th century BCE
Everything has been revolution since the 16th century, in Scotland, England, Germany, [...] in Holland, Switzerland, and France.
1756
With his ears full of music and his mouth full of delicacies, the upstart is not happy. The worry of maintaining his position makes him like a beast of burden endlessly climbing the same slope.
4th century BC
You do not think that you are reading; you believe that these are things happening before your very eyes.
45 BC
The world is unfit to cure itself; it is so impatient with what is oppressing it that it aims only to get rid of it, without considering the cost.
1580
Standing tambourine player
ca. 600–480 BCE
If quickness of mind alone should not command in chief, it can at least command in second.
1636
Democracy, the power of the majority, are not goods in themselves. They are means to the good, considered effective rightly or wrongly.
1957
[The individual] gets used to seeing himself at his true value, that is, to seeing himself only as part of a whole, the organ of an organism.
1893
By the number and beauty of the ideas that abbreviated expressions awaken [...], they have the advantage of striking the soul in an admirable way; and are, for this reason, what is called sublime.
1746
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1650
I would like to find a nook made for love and for study. [...] a small alcove where the light only half enters, for fear of dazzling the mystery.
1926
The leader [inspired by God] was in this sense far inferior, as a man, to the founder of an empire [...] and to the heroes.
1855
God as a merciful being.
1841
Free institutions are no less necessary to the leading citizens, to teach them their perils, than to the least of them, to secure their rights.
1856
Bronze handle attachment with duck heads
1st century BCE