Clarity adorns profound thoughts.
1747
He who, fighting for the republic, has received honorable wounds [...] trembles at the blow aimed at his reputation. He whom the shock of enemies has never made retreat [...] shudders with dread.
63 BC
The sweetness of marriage and the tender cares of fatherhood are so many obstacles that divert men from high enterprises.
1620
It is we ourselves who are the will to live: that is why we feel the need to live, whether well or badly.
1819
Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels
ca. 1350
there is always some evil so closely linked to the good that it seems impossible to enjoy one without suffering the drawbacks of the other.
1855
We are almost entirely the products of the circumstances that surround us.
1801
[Situation] does not admit of contrariety.
c. 1270
We cannot recall the ignorance in which we were born: it is a state that leaves no trace behind it.
1754
Steamboats in the Port of Rouen
1896
Everything is an enigma and a mystery: doubt, uncertainty, suspense of judgment, these are the only results of our most exact inquiries.
1757
The philosophy of 'clear and distinct' ideas [...] freed modern thought from the yoke of authority to admit no other mark of truth than evidence.
1915
To make a great effect, one must [...] always present clear and distinct ideas.
1772
The text of the first edition [...] represents the initial form of the author's thought.
1643-1662
Bronze statuette of a votary
ca. 1600 BCE or later
The working classes in the towns were beginning to be infected with the "poisons" of Socialism and Communism.
1851-1852
Those whom heaven has endowed with a great head and a great soul are ignorant of very few things. Their misfortune, [...] is not having enough time for all they have to do.
1765-1769
Man is very strong when he is content to be what he is: he is very weak when he wants to rise above humanity.
1762
How late it is to begin living at the very moment when one must cease to live!
c. 49 AD
View of Haarlem and the Haarlemmer Meer
1646
I have never lived, since I have not governed.
1968
An energetic depiction must be compared with the language that a dying [person] spoke.
c. 1552-1553
The most beautiful, most pleasant, and most necessary of all our knowledge is undoubtedly the knowledge of ourselves.
1674-1675
Thus the difference of minds originates from the difference of passions and the different ends to which appetite leads them.
1772
Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte (1778–1851), Daughter of Louis XVI
1795
Every being has an act which is its image, so that as soon as the being exists, its act also exists, and as long as the being subsists, its act radiates more or less far.
c. 253-270 AD
Never have parties better shown that sort of pedantic hypocrisy which makes them hide interests behind ideas.
1893
Prosperity [...] is but a fleeting state: it is a kind of game [...] where the most skillful is the one who knows when to quit while they're ahead.
1636
Moral indications that can be drawn from the eyes.
Mid-fourth century BC and 322 BC
Christ Taking Leave of His Mother
ca. 1500
I speak of that laughter which comes from a certain idea, and not of that which [...] has no relation to good and evil.
c. 1660
[In this book,] what is put at the beginning can only be proved by what is towards the end.
1643-1649
Providence is evidently the conviction that man has of the infinite value of his existence; it is religious idealism.
1841
Everyone is therefore bound to preserve himself [...]. And when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind.
1690
Marine: The Waterspout
1870
If he slackens or stiffens too much, [the leader] ceases to be a king [...]; he becomes a flatterer or a despot, and draws upon himself their hatred or contempt.
100-120 AD
[...] being unable to have what they wanted, they pretended to want what they could.
1580
Let a poor devil steal a belt buckle, and he will be beheaded. Let a great brigand steal a principality, and he will become a lord [...].
4th century BC
The disposition of mankind [...] to impose their own opinions and inclinations as a rule of conduct on others [...] is hardly ever kept under restraint by anything but want of power.
1859
Saint Stephen (with the Angel of the Annunciation)
1389
You are like a drachma that would ask to be recommended to someone so they might value it.
c. 108 AD
But that the story of this universal flood is found on a page of a book written in a desert by fugitives [...] this is what petrifies me; I cannot get over it.
1764
Human blood [...] is so sacred a thing that [...] it is very often used to consecrate the most respected instruments of the cult.
1912
There are then in the soul, it seems, false pleasures, which only ridiculously imitate the true ones [...].
c. 360 BC
Marble torso of a seated man
1st or 2nd century CE
[...] it is a paradox to say that there is nothing substantial in a block of marble, since this block of marble is not the mode of being of another substance.
1686
Great works are the trap of poets who are not first-rate geniuses.
1926
Man would rather will nothingness than not will at all...
1888
That external power which wrests from men the freedom to communicate their thoughts publicly, also takes from them the freedom to think.
1786
The Marriage of the Virgin
ca. 1479