A multitude of functions that were diffuse become concentrated. The care of education [...], of protecting public health, of presiding over public assistance [...] gradually enters the sphere of action of the central organ.
1893
The Catholic religion explicitly contains truths that other religions contain implicitly. But conversely, other religions explicitly contain truths that are only implicit in Christianity.
1942
Pythagoras, the first to have taken the name of philosopher...
45 BC
If it has occurred several times under the same conditions, one must contradict by alleging that the current case is not similar, or that the conditions differ.
329-323 BC
Statue of a man
6th century BCE or later
It is very true that nothing is more timid than a tyrant [...].
100-120 AD
The internal sanction of duty, whatever our standard of duty may be, is one and the same—a feeling in our own mind.
1861
The translation can present, at least to a certain degree, the physiognomy of the text.
55-56 AD
All that exists in the universe is the product of the mixture of the infinite and the finite.
c. 360 BC
Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist and Angels
1460
There is a kind of contradiction between the two principles of human nature upon which religion is founded. Our natural terrors make us see a wicked deity [...]; our inclination to praise paints it as excellent and all-perfect.
1757
Many ideas grow better once transplanted into an intelligence other than the one where they first sprouted.
1926
[She was] a very respectable woman, who often bored him, and whom he saw more willingly in his council than in his private apartments.
circa 1748
Virtues derive from the soul's primitive foundation; vices are born from the soul's commerce with external things.
c. 253-270 AD
Portrait of a Woman
late 1560s
One often obtains by violence and audacity what one would never obtain by ordinary means.
1513-1519
...to occupy oneself only with imitating those who, in looking at the greenness of a wood, the colors of a flower, the flight of a bird [...] persuade themselves that they are thinking of nothing.
1643-1649
The necessity we are under of believing without knowledge [...] should make us more careful to inform ourselves, than to constrain others to receive our sentiments.
1689
Civil history [...] by its importance and authority, holds the first rank among human writings.
1623
Bolt
7000 BCE - 330 CE
The word Hell [...] expresses nothing other than a low and hollow place, which the Poets invented to contrast with the dwelling of the celestial inhabitants.
17th century
[...] the authors of my ruin have found the inconceivable art of making the public an accomplice in their plot, without it suspecting so itself, and without it perceiving the effect.
1782-1789
It is only when we cast a glance back at our past life [...] that we often do not understand how we could have done this, neglected to do that; so that it seems a strange power has guided our steps.
1836
Men are indifferent regarding the stability of the earth [...] but they are not at all indifferent to these opinions when they are upheld by those they hate.
1674-1675
Statuette of a horseman, 3
7th–6th century BCE
Did all these important things, then, depend on so little?
c. 108 AD
There are never more inhabitants in a country than the number it can feed.
1776
Whenever a principle demonstrated to be true seems inapplicable, it is because we are ignorant of the intermediate principle which contains the means of its application.
1797
[...] the same thing happened to them as to those who, being too close to Notre-Dame de Lorette, rarely go there on pilgrimage [...].
1774
Marble statue of Tyche-Fortuna restored with the portrait head of a woman
1st or 2nd century CE
To obtain [the title of genius] one must [...] have composed a certain number of excellent tragedies.
1758
Just as all men naturally desire to know the truth, so too do they all have a natural desire to avoid error and to combat it when they can.
1270
The ruin of [Fan] did not take my life. It is not certain that the prosperity of [Tch'ou] will preserve yours.
4th century BC
Agree [...] that we often act according to what we want, but that we never want except according to what we feel, or according to what we think.
1746
Buckle
7000 BCE - 330 CE
If a man [born to rule] feels compassion, well! that compassion has value! But what does the compassion of those who suffer matter!
1886
[...] the thinking or spiritual substance is [...] much more excellent than the extended or corporeal substance, [for] only the spiritual one has a true unity, and a true self, which the corporeal one does not have.
1686
All these perceptions or ideas that we merely feel, and as a consequence of which we then judge and desire, are very different from one another.
1817
The course of time is but the distinction between the wanted and the possessed [...].
1890
Terracotta statuette of an actor
late 5th–early 4th century BCE
The workers [...] recalling the treatment inflicted upon them by the armed manufacturers and the vacillating and fluctuating policy of the middle classes in general, would not entrust the defense of the city to them.
1851-1852
People who are not afraid, in times of revolution, are like princes in the army; they make a great impression with very ordinary actions, because the particular position they occupy naturally sets them apart from the crowd.
1893
Go from the clamor of the courts to sweet solitude; leave games for study: change everything, except your loves.
1736
This multiplication of ideas only produces obscurity, and serves only to make one lose sight of the main object.
1636
Pietà
ca. 1657–60
It is only when we have understood how deeply [the artist] suffered [...] for an inaccessible ideal, that we begin to conceive who he was.
1896
Every man calls Good that which is pleasing to himself and calls Evil that which displeases him. [...] there exists no absolute goodness considered without relation.
1772
I am so bad a flatterer, that I am never more at ease than when I can freely give my opinion on the things that pass before our eyes.
1574
learn [...] to know themselves, by seeing themselves placed between an infinity and a nothingness [...]. From which one can learn to value oneself at one's true worth, and to form reflections that are worth more than all the rest of geometry itself.
circa 1658
Marble grave stele of Demetrios
1st century BCE