With all our flaws we govern men [...] You have reason, and we have charms.
1775-1784
It is much more difficult to find important truths [...] than to find the demonstration of truths that another has discovered.
1704
What are the flaws you notice in the philosophy of Descartes and Bacon, and why do you think it can be overthrown and replaced with something better?
1661-1676
You do not think that you are reading; you believe that these are things happening before your very eyes.
45 BC
Fragment of a limestone naiskos (?)
ca. 5th century BCE
God is personality, and at the same time he is impersonality, universality. God is therefore personified nonsense.
1841
In politics, the organization of parties is merely the means of relieving ourselves of the trouble of thinking.
1926
As for me, I will take the safest course [...] and will not make use of it.
1643-1649
A sentient being who knew only their own existence [...] could have the idea of duration; it would be sufficient for them to be endowed with memory.
1817
Scene in a Harem (Un Envoi de Serbie)
1876
One becomes afraid to read after realizing the enormity of the falsehoods [...] shamelessly displayed, even in the books of the most reputable authors.
1943
Laziness is natural to man; [...] he constantly gravitates towards rest, as bodies do towards a center.
1758
Marriage is the only real servitude recognized by our laws. There are no longer any slaves by law except for the mistress of each house.
1869
Montaigne is slightly mistaken...
c. 1552-1553
Marble statue of Tyche-Fortuna restored with the portrait head of a woman
1st or 2nd century CE
To conceal difficulties, even to treat them as impieties in order to discredit them, is a wretched expedient devoid of all value.
1793
[A badly composed epic, like] the Little Iliad, [provides the subject] for eight [tragedies], and even more.
c. 335 BC
It is a matter [...] of establishing degrees of certainty, of supporting the senses [...], but rejecting almost all the product of the first operations of the mind that immediately follow sensations.
1620
Between popular poetry and perfect poetry, we have mediocre poetry, which is disdained, unhonored, and worthless.
1580
Marble fragments of a statue of the emperor Caracalla
ca. 217–230 CE
We have failed in our inquiry and have not found what courage is.
c. 380 BC
It seems that this new morality has made men weaker, and has delivered the world to audacious scoundrels.
1513-1519
Far from feasting on acquired glory, [a great heart] forgets it to always seek a new one.
1636
Nations, like men, need time to learn, whatever their intelligence and their efforts.
1835-1840
Madonna and Child
1425
Those who imagine things strongly, express them with great force, and persuade all those who are convinced more by the air and by the sensible impression than by the force of reasons.
1674-1675
The democrat [...] imagines himself elevated above class antagonism. The democrats concede that a privileged class confronts them, but they, along with all the rest of the nation, constitute the people.
1851/1852
Only he who transforms himself remains my kinsman.
1886
The censure of the wicked is an approval of our life; it is a clear sign that we are beginning to have some justice when we begin to displease those who do not please God.
1263-1264
Allegory of the Arts
1742
One came to command by favor of his reputation [...], the other arrived there, despised because of his previous position.
100-120 AD
The contagiousness [of religious forces] [...] stems from the social origins of the notion of the sacred.
1912
These words, slave and right, are contradictory; they are mutually exclusive.
1762
It is always in spite of itself that a soul is deprived of the truth. The error appeared to it as a truth. That is all.
c. 108 AD
The Dispatch-Bearer
?1879
'But I wanted to live and experience no discomfort!' Such a cowardly wish is not worthy of a man.
63-64 AD
Despair is the greatest of our errors.
1746
As one of their main dogmas was poverty [...], they were exterminated by iron and by flames.
1769
Thus, revelation itself will prove the authority of revelation.
1766
Arrowhead
ca. 480–330 BCE
[An] absurd exemption [...] is naturally explained among peoples of barbaric origin.
1776
There are acts that are weak and obscure, others hidden, others powerful that radiate far.
c. 253-270 AD
Superior knowledge [...] springs from his eyes and penetrates with his gaze; words could not express it.
4th century BC
According to [some], benevolence is but hypocrisy, friendship a cheat, public spirit a farce, fidelity a snare to betray trust.
1751
Hoof, cow
7000 BCE - 330 CE
By this means [man] no more increases his knowledge than he increases his riches who, taking a bag of counters [...] names one a Crown, another a Pound [...] without however being richer by a mite.
1689
The course of an individual's life, however complicated it may appear, forms an orderly whole, having its determined tendency and its meaningful significance, just like the most carefully composed epic.
1836
To make the movement of the operation simpler, it was necessary for the machine to be built with a more complex movement.
1642-1645
The recurrence of the comic is endless, because we love to laugh and any pretext will do.
1900
Limestone head of a girl
3rd century BCE