By thinking to extirpate opinions with the sword, we act as with the Hydra, where for one head cut off, seven more would grow back.
c. 1552-1553
Standing in his field of global knowledge, the Sage despises the knowledge of details, all convention, all affection, all art.
4th century BC
We can only distinguish dreams from sensations because they are not linked with them; it is like a separate world.
1704
Thought remains incommensurable with language.
1889
Pin
50 CE - 400 CE
Taste is such a happy way of feeling that one perceives the value of things without the help of reflection [...].
1746
To seek theology in philosophy is [...] to seek the living among the dead; [...] to seek philosophy in theology is nothing other than to seek the dead among the living.
1623
Every proposition formulated by religion and morality contains this error; priests and moral legislators are the promoters of this perversion of reason.
1888
If nature, instead of flexible hands and fingers, had ended our wrists with a horse's hoof, who doubts that men, without arts, without dwellings, [...] would still be wandering in the forests like fugitive herds?
1758
Portrait of a Woman
1560
Their past experience gave them no idea of the possibility of disputes between the classes which [...] had so cordially united to overthrow a government hated by all.
1851-1852
The wife is actually the slave of her husband, no less, within the limits of legal obligation, than are slaves properly so called.
1869
Theology must not be subject to reason, nor reason to theology, but [...] each is sovereign in its own domain.
1670
Their credulity has been so strongly seized that they think they see what they do not see.
1580
Mountainous Landscape at Vicovaro
ca. 1786–97
A man who is imbued with what he says, usually imbues others with it; a passionate person always moves people.
1674-1675
To live is to be useful to many; to live is to make use of oneself.
63-64 AD
The characteristic feature of Wagner's thought is its astonishing unity: a unity that connects writings from different eras [...] through the commonality of the point of view.
1896
Everyone is born with two kinds of rights. The first is the right over one's own person, of which one alone can dispose. The second is the right one has [...] to inherit the property of one's brothers or father.
1690
Allegory of the Catholic Faith
ca. 1670–72
One must reread [a text], chastise it severely, add in all good faith what one can argue in one's favor, [and] what can be objected to.
1741-1784
What does helping the poor have to do with it! Hasn't Patriarch Sergius just had it decided in a council [...] that Jesus had two natures and one will!
1764
[...] how can it be that Christians continue to sin, as if they had not been redeemed [...]? From which we see that [this mystery] is impenetrable to reason, its effectiveness disproven by experience.
1766
Obscurity is the kingdom of error.
1747
Bronze youth
late 5th century BCE
The law of nature is that he who is better has more than he who is lesser of that for which he is better; and you will never be indignant.
c. 108 AD
Here and there one finds [...] souls filled with an exalted and almost fierce spiritualism, which is rarely encountered in Europe.
1835-1840
A power aspiring only to empire and glory, and not to rest, cannot refuse such an enterprise.
1513-1519
Wretch who understands nothing, who knows nothing. Come with me and I will teach you things you do not suspect.
1942
Madonna and Child with Saints Francis and Catherine of Siena
about 1476–80
A beautiful retreat in war brings as much honor as a proud attack.
1636
The greatest difference that exists between a friend and a mercenary is that the lure of the latter is interest, while the attraction of the former is moral honesty and wisdom in discourse.
100-120 AD
Let us never judge a man's morals by the fervor of his zeal [...]. The most enormous crimes are, on the contrary, very apt to give birth to religious terror, and to increase superstition.
1757
The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying 'This is mine,' and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society.
1755
The Last Token: A Christian Martyr
1860
When our body bows and lowers itself to our brothers' feet, the feeling of humility is either aroused in our heart, or strengthened if it was already there.
1263-1264
It is certain that, without this ordeal, clemency and other virtues [...] would never have been so noticed or so esteemed as they will be in the future by all who read the story.
1643-1649
Each type of people has its own education, which can serve to define it in the same way as its moral, political, and religious organization.
1922
The subject [...] can only be represented by [the inner sense] as a phenomenon, and not as it would judge itself, if its intuition were [...] intellectual.
1781
Bronze handle attachment with duck heads
1st century BCE
[The art of] persuading one is similar to [that of] persuading the many.
End of the 4th century BC
To judge, therefore, is to feel that one idea contains another.
1803
I would fear that you retained it humanly, if you had not forgotten the person from whom you learned it, to remember only God who alone can have truly taught it.
1656-1657
Digestion is impossible without heat.
c. 350 BC
Limestone statuette of a beardless male votary with a wreath of leaves
late 5th or early 4th century BCE
In these unfortunate times, they dare not raise their own voices to denounce the crime. [...] they remain silent, frightened by the danger.
79 BC
The main point of education [...] is that in everything perception precedes the notion, the narrow notion the broader notion.
1909
The contemplation of the One is that supreme revelation of the mysteries that the hierophant alone sees in the sanctuary and can only communicate to the initiated.
c. 253-270 AD
Such a system applied to works of the mind [...] would lead to a realism that would be the negation of the beautiful and the good.
1926
The Crucifixion
ca. 1325–30