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Dead Smart People

When you're tired of listening to living idiots.

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May he whose integrity was never in doubt not see, at sixty, his name condemned to dishonor.

81 BC

The practical intellect is compared to artificial things, as the measure to the thing measured; conversely, the speculative intellect is compared to the things it conceives as the thing measured to the measure.

c. 1270

The word 'to succeed' was obviously missing.

c. 1552-1553

In the world, everything acts according to what it is, according to its constitution [...] In this, man is no exception in nature: he too has his immutable character.

1840

Jean-Baptiste Joseph Pater

The Fair at Bezons

The Fair at Bezons

ca. 1733

A man who has learned to divest himself even of his personality can travel the entire world without experiencing conflict.

4th century BC

To resemble God, but God crucified.

1947

In all else, his virtue shines brightly; and his temperance, his contempt for riches, make him comparable to all the virtuous and disinterested citizens Greece ever had.

100-120 AD

It takes great qualities to make a hero.

1636

Etruscan or Italic

Bronze statuette of a warrior

Bronze statuette of a warrior

7th–6th century BCE

One must clearly distinguish the strength and beauty of words from the strength and evidence of reasons.

1674-1675

The word is altered when a part of the uttered word is rejected and another is made arbitrarily.

c. 335 BC

The art of arranging things into genera and species is of no small importance and greatly serves both judgment and memory.

1704

It is universally admitted that partiality is incompatible with justice; preference given to one person over another, when there is no reason to prefer them, is unjust.

1861

Sir David Wilkie

The Highland Family

The Highland Family

1824

How sweet it is to meet again after so long an absence and to renew an old friendship when one least thinks of it!

1627

It is not in my dignity to seek a victory by stealth.

1580

He who lives according to God must [...] not hate the man for the vice, nor [...] love the vice for the man, but [...] hate the vice and love the man.

c. 253-270 AD

Are you unaware that the countries of luxury are those where the people are the most miserable?

1772

Greek Artist, Laconian

Lead figure of a goddess with spear and aegis, possibly Athena

Lead figure of a goddess with spear and aegis, possibly Athena

6th–5th century BCE

The only pain [virtue] requires is to calculate correctly, and to give preference to the greatest happiness.

1751

Why be surprised [...] if the divinity judges it more advantageous for me to leave life at this very moment?

4th century BC

Every common interest was immediately detached from society, opposed to it as a superior, general interest, stolen from the personal activity of the members of society.

1851/1852

Modern man represents, from a biological point of view, a contradiction of values; he sits between two chairs, he says yes and no in the same breath.

1888

Robert Charles Dudley

Landing the Shore End of the Atlantic Cable

Landing the Shore End of the Atlantic Cable

1866

His opulence impoverishes him by multiplying his needs.

1796

A craftsman who speaks of riches, a prosecutor who speaks of war [...]. But the rich man speaks well of riches, the king speaks coldly of a great gift he has just made, and God speaks well of God.

1670

Since a more deeply felt need gives things a greater value, [...] the value of things increases in scarcity, and decreases in abundance.

1776

I conclude, therefore, that the human soul can only know the attributes of extension and thought.

1661-1676

Greek Artist, Rhodian ?

Head of a comic figurine

Head of a comic figurine

late 4th–3rd century BCE

All the governments of the world, once vested with public force, sooner or later usurp the Sovereign authority.

1762

Just as a banknote is only a promise of gold, so a concept is valuable only for the eventual perceptions it represents.

1934

The more I reflect on God, the less I can penetrate Him. Such is not the language of the learned crowd. They know nothing, they understand nothing, yet they speak of everything, and boast of it.

1763

When [our judgments] are flawed, it is always because of their relationship with previous judgments.

1805

Greek Artist

Marble fragment of a stele (grave marker) of a youth

Marble fragment of a stele (grave marker) of a youth

mid-4th century BCE

In the present as in the past, our pedagogical ideal is [...] the work of society. It is society that draws for us the portrait of the person we ought to be [...].

1922

Authority always seeks to overturn the barriers that restrain it.

1756

I do not want it to be some trifle, but the correctness of our judgments, that produces this effect on us.

c. 108 AD

We the people [...] in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility [...] and to secure for ourselves and for our posterity the blessings of liberty, we do [...] establish this Constitution.

1835-1840

Jan Mostaert

Christ Shown to the People

Christ Shown to the People

1510–15

Often the known truth becomes fatal to the one who discovers it.

1st Century AD

The will is but a desire that is not fought, that has its object in its power, or at least believes it has [...].

1746

The more progress man makes in scientific and industrial civilization, the more his reason rebels against revealed faith [...].

1841

It seemed to me that I had gained no other profit from my attempts to learn, except to discover more and more my own ignorance.

1637

Greek Artist, Attic

Terracotta statuette of a woman

Terracotta statuette of a woman

late 4th–early 3rd century BCE

A confused violence disturbs the calm of the night, and the light with the noise dispels the shadow and the silence.

1926

It is to remedy these inconveniences that this Work is published, which can be regarded as [...] a pocket Theology.

1768

Alas! My dear Roderigo, [...] it is your wife who is coming for you.

1518-1527

Morality is the true study of humankind.

1689

Greek Artist, Cypriot

Arrowhead

Arrowhead

ca. 480–330 BCE