It is not impossible, metaphysically speaking, that there could be a dream as continuous and lasting as a man's life; but this is a thing as contrary to reason as the fiction of a book being formed by chance [...].
1704
Besides, if he wanted to live as an honest man, he would have to do two things equally difficult at his age: learn much and forget much.
81 BC
Nobility is not hereditary in China, but a personal reward.
1770
One of the main benefits of virtue is to inspire in us a contempt for death, which allows us to live in gentle tranquility.
1580
Young Man and Woman in an Inn
1623
Democratic peoples [...] care little about what happened in Rome and Athens; they mean to be spoken to about themselves, and it is the picture of the present that they demand.
1835-1840
[Doctrine] is what every good Christian must believe, on pain of being burned [...]. The dogmas of Religion are immutable decrees of God who can only change his mind when the Church changes hers.
1768
In all sciences, certainty is equally complete when the reasoning is sound; but it is more difficult to make this reasoning sound in some than in others.
1817
Of all the evils with which tyranny is filled, the worst without a doubt is that among those who call themselves friends of the tyrant, there is not a single one who speaks with frankness.
100-120 AD
Marble head of a girl from a small statue
3rd century BCE
Others spend their lives doubting and arguing, without bothering about the subjects of their disputes and their doubts.
1746
However, Karl Marx did not linger in philosophical speculations, and turned entirely towards the socialist clubs.
March 17, 1883
[...] the strength or facility to act that all creatures find in their operations being in this sense only the effective will of the Creator.
1674-1675
It is the characteristic of a great power to make evils themselves serve the accomplishment of its work, to use to produce other forms things that have become formless.
c. 253-270 AD
The Return of the Cattle
ca. 1773–75
Discourse on the means of governing well and maintaining in good peace a kingdom or other principality [...].
1855
The entire history of social progress consists in the series of transitions that lead a custom or institution to pass from the rank of a primary necessity [...] to that of a universally condemned injustice.
1861
Let no one, however, think of separating these two illustrious apostles, for both lived the life personified in Peter, just as both were one day to live the life of which John was the figure.
1263-1264
Another sign of a prosperity nearing its end is its long duration: fortune grows old [...] with the years, as we do.
1636
Fragmentary bronze statuette of a male votary
ca. 1700–1450 BCE
The essential truth concerning God is that He is good. To believe that God can order men to commit atrocious acts of injustice and cruelty is the greatest error one can make regarding Him.
1942
It is certain that nothing is rarer among human writings than a history that is well-made and accomplished in all its points.
1623
An individual can be moderate in his desires, be content with what he possesses; a body is always ambitious.
1772
Whoever holds to their freedom must renounce the comforts of the body. Whoever holds to their life must renounce dignities. Whoever holds to union with the Principle must renounce all attachment.
4th century BC
Marble bust of a bearded man
ca. 150–175 CE
Two empires are in relation to one another as two individuals in the state of nature.
1677
It is not a slow reform, but only a swift revolution that can bring about this change.
1777
One wants not only to be understood when one writes, but certainly also not to be understood. Every distinguished mind [...] thus chooses its audience.
1882
Cold reason has never done anything illustrious, and one only triumphs over passions by opposing them to one another.
1761
View of the Tiber
before 1789
Women, those mediocre and magical beings.
1926
An energetic depiction must be compared with the language that a dying [person] spoke.
c. 1552-1553
Often the best course of action only becomes clear in hindsight, while at the time the matter was obscure.
329-323 BC
The wicked are at bottom the greatest dupes, for they have sacrificed the happiness of enjoying [...] the pleasure of being virtuous, to acquire trifles of no value.
1751
The Crucifixion
ca. 1325–30
Our knowledge can never embrace all that we may desire to know about the ideas we have, nor remove all the difficulties and resolve all the Questions that can be asked about any of these Ideas.
1689
This study [...] does not occupy me enough to cause me sorrow.
1643-1649
[The people] believed that the sole business of government was to provide them with cheap bread. The regulations [...] in truth produced the opposite effect: but they did not know it.
1776
The shorter time will be a merely attributed time, unable to be lived, unreal: only real Time [...] will be a time that can be lived.
1922
Spatula or curette
7000 BCE - 330 CE
Does it not seem to you that I have been preparing for it all my life? [...] By living without committing the slightest injustice, which is, in my eyes, the most beautiful way to prepare a defense.
4th century BC
You know, indeed, in what circumstances, through what intermediaries, to which persons certain secrets must be entrusted.
3rd or 4th century AD
Remove [pleasure], then; take it from the scales; cast it far from the place of true goods.
c. 108 AD
If interest brings men together, it is never but for a few moments; it can only create an external bond between them.
1893
Statuette of a woman
6th century BCE
It is a natural malady of man to believe that he possesses the truth directly; and from this comes his constant disposition to deny everything that is incomprehensible to him.
circa 1658
[The dogma of the Vedanta school maintains] that this matter has no reality independent of the mind's perception, existence and perceptibility being two equivalent terms.
1819
In all things, one begins with the simple, then comes the complex, and often, finally, one returns to the simple through superior enlightenment. Such is the progress of the human mind.
1764
The severe word of Kant is a manifesto in which Morality announces that it is free and independent of any kind of revelation, of any kind of God above or below [...].
1841
Shist whetstone or polisher
ca. 1600–1050 BCE or earlier