The priests of all religions have found the means to base their own power, their wealth, and their greatness on the fears of the common people.
1766
At whatever price, one must subdue the affections of one's heart, [...] if one aspires to heroism.
1636
We get angry with those who do not return good for good and whose gratitude does not equal the service rendered.
329-323 BC
The other knew neither how to honorably guard himself from death, nor how to bear it courageously.
100-120 AD
Portrait of a Young Woman
1603
I deny that we have the free power to suspend our judgment. [...] The suspension of judgment is therefore really an act of perception, and not of free will.
1661-1675
We call habit the permanent disposition, the way of being, that arises from frequent repetition: this is the true meaning of the word habit.
1801
The imagination may perhaps be excused if it sometimes raves [...]. But that the understanding, whose business it is to think, should instead rave, is something that can never be forgiven.
1783
I would almost wager that she has not told a deliberate lie since she reached the age of reason.
1759-1774
Female head, perhaps from a standing tambourine player
ca. 600–480 BCE
[The soul of the star] cannot therefore be harmful since its principle is an excellent nature.
c. 253-270 AD
If stupidity were to disarm, it would become wit, which is impossible.
1926
[A ruler] knows that if he punished all who insult him, he would have no one left to rule.
c. 108 AD
[The capitalist] sells not only what has cost him an equivalent, but also what has cost him nothing at all, although it has cost his worker's labor.
1865
Portrait of a Woman
1775
The influence of a doctrine on the opinions, morals, and politics [...] during a revolution.
1855
It would be wrong to believe that the periodical press has always been entirely free in America; attempts have been made to establish something analogous to prior censorship [...].
1835-1840
He who knows how to think, reigns visibly or invisibly over all those who only know how to speak or act.
1609
Which is not to waste time, but to use it well.
1643-1649
Terracotta horse and rider
ca. 750–600 BCE
It does not seem that we were made to have a perfect, clear, and absolute knowledge of things; [...] that is perhaps well beyond the reach of any finite being.
1689
We have reconquered the good courage to err, to try, to take things provisionally [...] We have the right to experiment with ourselves!
1881
Every progress, rightly considered, is a decline.
37 AD - 41 AD
The judge states the law, he does not pronounce penalties.
1893
Portrait of a Man
1795
It is not knowing how to live to examine what they [the great] put forward: it is to lose respect to doubt it.
1674-1675
The masters, not knowing how to make [the disciples] reason, have an interest in declaring them incapable of it.
1772
Vice does not always exclude virtue in the same subject; above all, one must not easily believe that what is still lovable is vicious.
1746
An empire that becomes depopulated and falls into ruin would not be any greater for having extended its borders.
1776
A Jaguar Devouring a Deer
after 1840
When the possessors of a privilege make concessions to those who are deprived of it, it is rarely for any other reason than because the latter acquire the power to extort them.
1869
The man whose heart is alive acts upon other living hearts, like the sun which gives life to the world.
4th century BC
Essentially discontinuous, since it proceeds by juxtaposed words, speech only marks out from a distance the main stages of the movement of thought.
1896
I wept, I sighed, I desired a happiness of which I had no idea, and of which I felt the deprivation.
1782-1789
Marble grave relief with a funerary banquet and departing warriors
2nd century BCE
From 'every man is an animal', it does not follow that 'every animal is a man', for 'animal' says more than 'man'.
c. 1270
An individual, or even a nation, has no right to deliver an innocent to death for the sake of political utility.
1753
Science does not explain the essence of phenomena.
1819
Art is 'the highest manifestation of the life of men in common'.
1896
Portrait of a Dwarf
1525
It must be believed that systems and hypotheses have perverted and corrupted our understanding, since a theory so simple and natural could for so long escape the inquiries of men.
1751
All pleasure and all pain are born in the soul.
c. 360 BC
You give me back to myself.
September 57 BC
[The meadows], in a variegated mood, embellish with a thousand flowers of color their dappled adornment.
1546/1563
The Birth of Cupid
1550
[Some] purchase a shameful flight at the cost of the same efforts that would have been required to win a glorious victory.
1580
Should an evident quality be called occult, because its immediate cause is perhaps occult, or has not yet been discovered?
1715-1716
Affliction makes God absent for a time, more absent than a dead person [...]. What is terrible is that if, in this darkness where there is nothing to love, the soul ceases to love, the absence of God becomes definitive.
1942
One cannot preserve old grace except by acquiring new grace; otherwise, one will lose what one thinks one holds, like those who, wishing to enclose the light, enclose only darkness.
1656-1657
Marble head of Herakles
1st or 2nd century CE