I hold that when God performs miracles, it is not to supply the needs of nature, but those of grace.
1715-1716
It is certainly madness, because one will be unhappy someday, to be so right now.
63-64 AD
The first days of spring have less grace than the nascent virtue of a young man.
1746
Light is not the quality of a subject; it is the act that emanates from a subject, but does not pass into another subject; only, if another subject is present, it will experience an affection.
c. 253-270 AD
Limestone plaque with two eyes in relief
480–310 BCE
[This power] seeks only [...] to keep them in perpetual childhood; it likes citizens to rejoice, provided they think only of rejoicing.
1835-1840
The dissimilarities between people have become more pronounced as they have become more cultivated.
1893
The truth is that French literature [...] has only ever been renewed by breaths from the outside.
1926
Intention alone decides the moral value [...] of a given act, so much so that the same act, depending on the agent's intention, can be either blameworthy or praiseworthy.
1840
Bronze kyathos (single-handled jug)
ca. 450–400 BCE
Madmen do not pass for what they are among the mad who resemble them, but only among reasonable men.
1674-1675
These swallows that go [...] are the messengers of spring.
1546/1563
What makes a man is the soul, not this figure that can be pointed at with a finger.
54-51 BC
The word is also an image, an eminently abstract image; indeed, by pronouncing the name of a thing, one imagines one knows the thing itself.
1841
Needle
3900 BCE - 100 CE
I think, therefore I am.
1637
All the religions we see on earth show us nothing but a heap of impostures and reveries that equally revolt reason.
1766
[The] words of the Lord can be applied to all Christians who strive for eternal joys through the tears and sufferings of this life.
1263-1264
[A remedy is] certain in the hands of a good practitioner [...] but [it is a] deadly instrument in the hands of an ignorant person.
1623
Bronze youth
late 5th century BCE
Error is inherent in human nature; it is enough merely to reconsider.
1527
Duration and movement are measured with the utmost precision, thanks to extension.
1817
The body is nourished as long as it lives and lasts, and even when it decays; but it does not grow unceasingly.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Outside of us, reciprocal externality without succession; within, succession without reciprocal externality.
1889
Gold pin with pomegranate head
7th–6th century BCE
What is the seal of realized liberty? — To be no longer ashamed of oneself.
1882
The wife is actually the slave of her husband, no less, within the limits of legal obligation, than are slaves properly so called.
1869
Only theft can still save property; only perjury, religion; bastardy, the family; disorder, order!
1851/1852
Judgments are [...] either merely subjective, when representations are related to a single consciousness in one subject, or they are objective when they are united in a consciousness in general, that is to say [...] necessary.
1783
Limestone inscribed block
3900 BCE - 100 CE
More docile to opinion than to reason, [...] men indifferently accept [...] all the true or false ideas presented to them.
1758
I see a light spread in all directions [...] which is not concentrated in a single point [...]. I find there, independently of any judgment, [...] the idea of extension with all its dimensions.
1746
Trust me [...]: you can trust no one.
c. 108 AD
I have learned to doubt whether a man enjoying a great fortune, whoever he may be, can sincerely love my principles and their author.
1782-1789
Bronze pendant in the form of a paired couple
8th century BCE
This [...] is the shooting of a shooter, of a man who wants to shoot, of a man who knows he is shooting (art, not nature).
4th century BC
The material reality of the accident [is deemed] 'insufficiently established'.
1643-1662
In a reasonable Creature, anything that is not done out of affection is neither bad nor good.
1745
Listen to the protestations of men, there is nothing of which they are so assured as the truth of their religion. Look at their conduct: you will doubt they ever had any religion at all.
1757
Terracotta statuette of a woman
3rd century BCE
A great provision for governing well is not wealth, but moderation in our desires.
100-120 AD
A minister does not correct himself and cannot be corrected; he has reached his full growth [...] he has no time to listen to advice, the tide of affairs carries him away.
1764
Although a passion, for being secret, is no less a passion, [...] it matters greatly to know how to make a mystery of it.
1636
The seer knows the signs of what will come to pass, [...] but whether it is better for us that this should happen or not is for another to judge.
c. 380 BC
Sebastián Martínez y Pérez (1747–1800)
1792
Political societies have been founded on nothing other than the consent of the people.
1690
'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' Therein lies the true proof that Christianity is something divine.
1947
Because a book has corrupted parts, is that a reason to regard all the rest as suspect? Has a book ever been found that was entirely free from faults?
1670
If it had been proposed to Saint Augustine to annihilate his writings... or to lose his children..., would it not have been an impiety on his part not to sacrifice the latter?
1580
The Afternoon Meal (La Merienda)
ca. 1772