The number and importance of the prohibitions that isolate a sacred thing [...] correspond to the degree of sacredness with which it is invested.
1912
Death is an evil, for the gods have judged it so; otherwise, they themselves would be mortal.
329-323 BC
[...] fashion finds its way even into crimes.
1756
He did not claim to prove the truths of Religion by geometric demonstrations [...] but by moral proofs that go more to the heart than to the mind.
1670
Standing boy with a goose
3rd century BCE
There is no indifferent step in life; if we lead it without the knowledge of truth, what an abyss!
1746
Luxury may be harmful in Switzerland. It would ruin a man, whereas it only encourages industry [...] among the French or the English; one should not therefore expect to find the same laws established in Bern, London, and Paris.
1751
Never was a man less curious than I about his friends' secrets.
1782-1789
We will command attention by promising to speak of important, new, extraordinary things, or of facts that concern the State or the audience itself.
86-82 BC
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1790
Let us welcome [old age] and love it: it is full of sweetness for those who know how to use it.
63-64 AD
Nothing infuriated him more than the follies of well-intentioned but unintelligent supporters.
1896
Far from feasting on acquired glory, [a great heart] forgets it to always seek a new one.
1636
Liberty alone, men do not desire it, for no other reason, it seems, than that if they desired it, they would have it.
c. 1552-1553
Wall painting: frieze supporting trellis, from the imperial villa at Boscotrecase
last decade of the 1st century BCE
Then, it seems, it is a wise endurance which would be courage.
c. 380 BC
[The will] consists in desiring to experience or to avoid any way of being.
1817
Thus, all is mystery, all is magic, all is incomprehensible in the dogmas, as well as in the worship of a revealed religion [...] which wanted to draw mankind from its blindness.
1766
One ought, out of love for life, to want a different kind of death, free, conscious, not accidental, not a surprise.
1888
Eye Miniature
1800
One must bear its weight according to one's strength, but in a manner consistent with nature.
c. 108 AD
If there exists a courageous mortal who has a true desire, not to remain nailed to the discoveries already made [...], but to add to these inventions himself [...], let him deign to join us.
1620
The great and unfortunate errors [...] on the matter of government, have arisen [...] from the fact that these different powers have been confounded.
1690
The life I am forced to lead does not leave me the disposition of enough time to acquire a habit of meditation according to your rules.
1643-1649
Spatula or curette
7000 BCE - 330 CE
[A God] who would transform himself into a world [...] to endure misery, suffering, and death, without measure or end, in the form of countless millions of living beings [...].
1851
The only school of true moral sentiment is a society between equals.
1869
He who has a keen sense of color [...] his palette is the image of chaos. It is into this chaos that he dips his brush; and from it he draws the work of creation.
1766
The fact that in Vienna, as in Berlin, the fate of the revolution was decided [...] is sufficient to demonstrate that this body was merely a debating club [...].
1851-1852
Baron Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859)
1859
If He [God] needs some means to sense things, then they do not depend entirely on Him and are not His production.
1715-1716
Because a book has corrupted parts, is that a reason to regard all the rest as suspect? Has a book ever been found that was entirely free from faults?
1670
To philosophize is nothing other than to prepare for death.
1580
When false zeal joins with hatred, it shields it from the reproaches of reason, and justifies it in such a way that one would feel scruples not to follow its movements.
1674-1675
Spearhead
3900 BCE - 100 CE
The reader will make the application himself; the risks are his.
1934
If it is important on one hand that every citizen can live from their work, it is certain on the other that we will not be able to provide occupation for all, unless the arts have made new progress.
1776
The superior man, rather cold, attracts; the common man, though warm, repels. Connections that do not have a profound reason for being, come apart as they were made.
4th century BC
[We act] in the conviction that the affection [a person] has for us will encourage them to take on the task willingly.
1498
Portrait of a Woman, Possibly Barbara (1768–1829), Marchioness of Donegall
ca. 1790
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
[Man and child] live in such different worlds that one can only gain knowledge of the other through very rare intuition.
1926
The intoxication of a high position makes [the leader] forget that he and his posterity may be the first victims of the power he builds.
1772
What is called family spirit is often founded on an illusion of individual selfishness. One seeks to perpetuate and immortalize oneself, in a way, in one's descendants.
1835-1840
Peasants Dancing
1651
A principle recognized as true must therefore never be abandoned, whatever its apparent dangers may be.
1797
The word Passover means passage [...] when we pass from the devil to Jesus Christ, and from this inconstant world into the kingdom whose foundations are unshakable.
1263-1264
The most divine [maxim] has always seemed to be 'Know thyself'; and it was precisely this maxim that constituted for [the philosopher] the starting point of his doubts and inquiries.
1st Century A.D.
The whole inferiority of the animal lies there: it is a specialist. It does what it does very well, but it cannot do anything else.
1882
Limestone inscribed box fragment
3900 BCE - 100 CE