Believing herself to be his absolute mistress, she gave him her orders without consideration or pity; and if he refused her anything, she did not hesitate to overwhelm him with reproaches.
1518-1527
Our goal is to open to the understanding an entirely new path, one that the ancients neither explored nor even knew.
1620
What is this glory that swells your hearts [...]? An echo, a shadow, a dream, the shadow of a dream.
1742
God is only the fictitious projection of man.
1841
Bronze statuette of a sphinx
ca. 1st century BCE–2nd century CE
Let virtue show you the way to true glory, and draw you to it by its charms.
54-51 BC
The contemplation of the One is that supreme revelation of the mysteries that the hierophant alone sees in the sanctuary and can only communicate to the initiated.
c. 253-270 AD
The great naturally know all things; they are always right, even when they decide on questions of which they have no knowledge.
1674-1675
As long as you worry and trouble yourself about it, can you believe yourself sufficiently convinced of the true goods and the true evils?
c. 108 AD
Upper part of a female limestone votary
2nd or 3rd quarter of the 6th century BCE
Carefree, mocking, violent—thus wisdom wants us. She is a woman, and she will never love any but a warrior.
1887
If it is not shameful for you to sell, then it will not be shameful for us to buy.
329-323 BC
You can draw tears from me, but they are less of love than of rage.
Before January 1765
A beautiful retreat in war brings as much honor as a proud attack.
1636
Limestone head of beardless male votary with wreath of leaves
early 2nd century BCE(?)
He vanquished the most cunning by his shrewdness, and the most valiant by his audacity.
100-120 AD
Any law contrary [to the public interest] is not a law, it is a legal abuse.
1772
I am persuaded that it is the wisdom of the doctrine alone which establishes the certainty of divine revelation, and not miracles, which are based only on ignorance.
1661-1676
When one writes off the cuff, everything that can be said on a subject either does not come to mind, or is not said as it should be said.
1741-1784
The Agony in the Garden
ca. 1504
But from morality an end nevertheless follows; for it is impossible for reason to remain indifferent to the question: what will result from our good conduct?
1793
The excess of dependence to which the woman is reduced inspires [...] the idea that the law has delivered her to them as their thing, to be used at their discretion.
1869
Little by little, science will empty causality of its dynamic elements. The cause-and-effect relationship will approach [...] the relationship that links two variables to each other [...].
1900
Consider a ferry crossing a river. If an empty, drifting boat happens to bump into it, [...] the ferrymen will not get angry, because no person has come into conflict with them, the boat being empty.
4th century BC
The Card Party
ca. 1665
The world would be destroyed in the blink of an eye if God withdrew His regulating action from it.
1263-1264
Speech and language are the indispensable instruments of all clear thought. But like any means, [...] these instruments are at the same time a hindrance and a fetter.
1819
There is nothing, it seems to me, more unhappy than a man who has never experienced misfortune.
c. 64 AD
We exist only because we feel; we would not exist if we did not feel.
1817
The Adoration of the Shepherds
probably after 1520
The court is not for long the noisy assembly of all our vain pleasures [...], deceptive comforts for unfortunate hearts.
1776-1777
If men were ordinarily to rise from the grave, as wheat grows from seed, we would certainly say that this too was a natural thing.
1715-1716
The true definition of science is that it is the study of the beauty of the world.
1943
I shall not consider myself certain until you are on my side.
1643-1662
Bronze tweezers
1st–2nd century CE
Any personality, however powerful it may be, could do nothing on its own against an entire society.
1893
Manners spoil more easily than they are corrected.
1746
Land will be valuable wherever agriculture enjoys complete freedom; and then the population [...] will be as large as it can be. That is the prosperity of the State.
1776
The greedy, blind, and coarse passions [...] are almost as formidable to those who sympathize with them without fully abandoning themselves to them as to those who condemn and fight them.
1893
View of Toledo
ca. 1599–1600
Victory following him like his shadow wherever he led, the prosperity of his country also died when he died, just as it was born through him.
1580
What a civilization, where an umbrella merchant is, in all possible cases, the absolute judge, the judge of life and death!
1926
The measure of a man is what he does with power.
c. 375 BC
There is nothing false, nothing unworthy of being said and recommended in writing for times to come.
1574
Terracotta mold of a grotesque figure
2nd–1st century BCE
Today, the issue is not the existence or non-existence of God, but the existence or non-existence of man; we must concern ourselves [...] with the equality of men among themselves [...].
1841
[...] It is without doubt a similar affectation of wanting to know more than we can understand that makes so much noise and causes so many vain disputes in the World.
1689
From the very first steps, the man who wants to ascertain revelation [...] is thrown into distrust and perplexity.
1766
There is still a long way to go from promises to effect.
1643-1649
Jacques-Louis Leblanc (1774–1846)
1823