The courts [...] have often put the innocent to death, and often acquitted the guilty whose language had moved their pity or flattered their ears.
4th century BC
April, the perfume of the gods, who, from the heavens, smell the scent of the plain.
1546/1563
Although it is a detestable action to employ fraud in the conduct of life, nevertheless, in the conduct of war, it becomes a laudable and glorious thing.
1513-1519
In this regard, it is with the grown man as with the child; both reason poorly on what they do not understand.
1772
Christ Bearing the Cross
1489
[It can happen] that the coachmen refuse to stop to pick up [passengers] on the route, even though there are still empty seats...
1662
The bonds of Christian communion are thus marked: one faith, one baptism, and not a single rite, a single opinion.
1623
It's astonishing, the divine music that twelve French syllables can make!
1926
The dogma of the Trinity therefore requires man to think the opposite of what he imagines and to imagine the opposite of what he thinks [...].
1841
Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte (1778–1851), Daughter of Louis XVI
1795
The necessary being and the being by its essence are but one and the same thing.
Late 17th - early 18th century
There is no effect without a cause, and [...] the smallest cause produces the greatest effects.
1764
[He] could, in good conscience, have two wives, [...] by virtue of a dispensation from the law, which would only cost him a hundred thousand écus.
circa 1748
One must fear the one who hates himself, for we will be the victims of his anger and his revenge. Let us then be careful to lead him to love himself!
1881
Abner's Messenger before David; The Queen of Sheba Bringing Gifts to Solomon; The Annunciation
ca. 1480
Delicacy comes essentially from the soul.
1746
By letting themselves be led by the democrats [...], by forgetting the revolutionary interests of their class for the sake of momentary well-being, the workers declined the honor of being a conquering class [...].
1851/1852
[...] if you come here, be sure that you will lead a happy life worthy of a philosopher [...].
1661-1676
As the gods acquire more knowledge and authority, they become more fearsome.
1757
Limestone statuette of a boy holding a bird
2nd half of the 5th century BCE
An empire that becomes depopulated and falls into ruin would not be any greater for having extended its borders.
1776
We call contingent the effects of which we see the cause, without seeing the chain of causes of that cause.
1805
Neither facts nor ideas are [...] constitutive of science: science, always provisional and [...] symbolic, is born from the collaboration of the idea and the fact.
1915
[...] the consideration of my imperfections has become so familiar that it no longer gives me more emotion than is necessary for the desire to rid myself of them.
1643-1649
Limestone head of a girl
3rd century BCE
A hero never appears greater than in circumstances capable of obscuring the glory of anyone other than himself.
1636
Our waking is never so awake as to properly purge and dissipate daydreams, which are the dreams of the waking, and worse than dreams.
1580
Wherever there is good, there is supernatural contact with God, even in a fetishistic and cannibalistic tribe [...].
1962
I cannot be at the same time your magistrate and your slave.
100-120 AD
Fantastic Landscape
ca. 1765
In contingent matter, both contraries can be false.
c. 1270
The wife who does not push her husband forward holds him back.
1869
This often happens with nobles; many of them are of little worth.
329-323 BC
The practical philosopher is one who takes the final end of reason as the principle of his actions, and who moreover possesses the necessary knowledge for it.
1797-1798
The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche
ca. 1540
The beginning of political society depends on the consent of the individuals, [...] so that all who enter it may establish the form of government they see fit.
1690
If martyrs proved the truth of a religion, there is no religion, nor sect, that could not be regarded as true.
1766
In inorganic life, action and reaction are equal: from the first degree of animal life, they diverge [...]. This judge, this dispenser of action, is the free soul.
1839
Nature is sufficient for what she demands. But luxury has strayed from nature, a luxury that spurs itself on day by day, that grows with the centuries, an ingenious auxiliary to vices.
63-64 AD
Landscape with Boy Fishing
1818
[The soul of the star] cannot therefore be harmful since its principle is an excellent nature.
c. 253-270 AD
I desire neither reputation nor fortune, because these things do not bring happiness.
4th century BC
You give me back to myself.
September 57 BC
Of all the passions, the one that goes least to the heart is admiration.
1674-1675
Bronze cinerary urn with lid
ca. 500 BCE
Presumption consists in believing that one needs nothing; self-distrust, in telling oneself that one cannot achieve happiness [...].
c. 108 AD
For a nascent people to be able to feel the great maxims of justice [...] the effect would have to become the cause, the social spirit [...] would have to preside over the institution itself, and men would have to be before the laws what they are to become by them.
1762
Power, exercised in the name of the people, but placed very far from them, was entirely handed over to the executive.
1864-1866
What is necessary is to compare not isolated variations, but regularly constituted series of variations.
1895
Arrowhead
ca. 480–330 BCE