Prudence obliges one to show contentment, even if one is not; and to thank not only those who give something back, but also those who do not take everything.
1643-1649
Land-based wealth [...] produced to be consumed, is only reproduced in proportion to consumption.
1776
After the first-order necessities, food and clothing, liberty is the first and most imperious need of human nature.
1869
We most often perceive in things only what we wish to find in them.
1758
The Life and Miracles of Saint Godelieve
1475
[...] we are more envious of those who seem to make more progress in virtue.
c. 72-126 AD
There is a conflict of judgments [within us], some perceived, others unnoticed, and it is always the most habitual that prevail, often wrongly.
1801
[Genius is] a rare machine that says: this will succeed... and it succeeds; this will not succeed... and it does not succeed.
c. 1763
Some are born virtuous, it is true; but care, reflection, and effort can give to others what nature has denied them.
1636
Marble two-sided relief
1st century CE
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
What man is affected by losing what is not his?
c. 55
Do you know why you esteem him as great? You include the height of his stilts. The pedestal is not part of the statue.
1580
In aristocracies, men are separated from one another by high, immovable barriers; in democracies, they are divided by a multitude of tiny, almost invisible threads.
1835-1840
Portrait of a Woman, Called the Marchesa Durazzo
probably ca. 1622–25
He would be a very ill-advised God who could find no better amusement than to transform himself into a world such as this!
1851
This internal conflict increases the terror, and gives a more hideous aspect to the phantoms that persecute the unfortunate victims of superstition.
1757
God as a moral being or law.
1841
Wealth should not give rise to pride, nor to idleness; it should only be an instrument in the service of virtue.
c. 387 BC
Statuette of a warrior-10
7000 BCE - 30 BCE
Man, renounce everything [...] to be happy, to be free, to have a great soul. Hold your head high; you are delivered from servitude.
c. 108 AD
Hardly had that word 'yes', the symbol of truth, left my mouth, than one of the [...] monsters [...] cried out: Apostate!
1772
All armed prophets have been successful, and the unarmed ones have been destroyed.
1855
History has shown that what was moral for one people could be immoral for another, and not only in fact, but in right.
1893
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1800
Human life can be compared to a race [...] where one has no other goal and no other reward than to outpace one's competitors.
1772
Those who foster a state of affairs where the lure of profit is the main motive take obedience away from men [...].
1943
If recall is accompanied by an effort, it is because the mind moves from one plane to another.
1919
Does not the adage say: chiseling and polishing are not as good as letting nature act. [...] I let people do as they would, spontaneously, as nature operates.
4th century BC
Statuette of a girl
ca. 550–500 BCE
Men's maxims reveal their hearts.
1746
[...] now for serious matters.
1888
In times of trouble, the inhabitants of Paris were obliged, during the night, to place lit lanterns on their windows.
1662
His law will end the silence of the laws.
1757-1758
Handle attachment
900 BCE - 100 BCE
Bourgeois revolutions [...] storm swiftly from success to success [...] but they are short-lived; soon they have reached their zenith, and a long depression lays hold of society.
1851/1852
To its faith are committed the examples of our ancestors, the vicissitudes of things, the foundations of civil prudence [...].
1623
It is [...] the duty of good and courageous citizens [...] to close every path to sedition, to fortify the ramparts of the republic.
63 BC
Morality thus leads necessarily to religion.
1793
Limestone statuette of a male votary
probably mid-6th century BCE
Adultery [...is] very different in each of the two sexes, both in its motives and in its consequences.
1926
[...] according to you, every time I want to raise my arm, it is the will of God that is the real and efficient cause of this movement.
1686
This privation [evil] exists only for our mind, not for God's.
1661-1676
They usually stop at the surface, at external ceremonies [...], they occupy themselves with them entirely. [...] Everything is essential to them, except what is truly essential.
1674-1675
Portrait of a Man
1670
The elocution proper to public speeches is very much like a painting; [...] the farther one must stand to contemplate it.
329-323 BC
The first reason for voluntary servitude is custom.
c. 1552-1553
May God grant that civil magistrates take more care to conform to [the Gospel], than to bind the consciences of others by human laws...
1686
For the Holy Spirit, to hear is to know, and to know is to be.
1263-1264
Fragment of a statuette of a woman
4th–3rd centuries BCE