God allows us to be in the midst of dangers, to test our courage [...] and to teach us to turn to Him alone who can save us even when all hope is lost.
1263-1264
It is to the immortal gods that we have the obligation to live, and to live well is a gift of philosophy.
63-64 AD
The habit of success is so flattering that most people always aspire to new successes [...], like those with dropsy who cannot quench their thirst.
1636
Montaigne is an author one can hardly afford to ignore; but he is also perhaps one of the most dangerous to be studied by the young.
1580
Girl in a Sailor's Blouse
1918
Whenever reason is against a man, a man will be against reason.
1772
Those who think that [...] God and nature are one and the same thing (understanding by nature a certain mass or corporeal matter) [...] are in complete error.
1661-1676
A father's faults are not his children's faults [...]. A father, by his misconduct, [...] may forfeit the right to his own life; but his children must not be implicated in his crimes.
1690
When society is brought to intervene, it is not to reconcile individual interests; [...] it applies the general and traditional rules of law to the specific case.
1893
Portrait of a Man
1741
A bizarre fantasy makes you sacrifice all true pleasures to this vain smoke [glory], a worthy reward for its frivolity.
1742
It is up to the public, for anything that does not require the use of force, to police itself. Here it will be a matter of inertia; it will consist of not listening, not looking, not paying.
1926
[The event] led to the resolution [...] to cease his outings and to live in complete solitude.
1643-1662
No one is more prone to mistakes than those who act only upon reflection.
1747
Mrs. Vanderbank
ca. 1730
We must not hold Fortune alone responsible for the misfortunes of men; [...] we must look for the part played in them by the disorders of the heart and of reason.
100-120 AD
In this new season, the beautiful swarm of these plundering bees flutters from flower to flower.
1546/1563
When I make a wheel, if I go about it gently, the result will be weak; if I go about it forcefully, the result will be massive; if I go about it, I know not how, the result will conform to my ideal [...]. It's a knack that cannot be expressed.
4th century BC
Enjoy your happiness, your glory, and above all the goodness of your character: for the wise, there is no sweeter reward [...].
46 BC
Terracotta warriors
6th century BCE(?)
God sees everything by His immediate presence, being actually present to the things themselves, to all the things that are in the universe.
1715-1716
For what is freedom? It is to have the will to take personal responsibility, it is to tenaciously maintain the distances that separate us [...].
1888
It is from the bringing together of all these impressions and the combinations we make of them [...] that the perception or individual idea of an object is formed for us.
1805
Truly, I made laws; I even made them in verse.
1819
Pansies
1903
Desire is the appetite for that which gives pleasure.
384–322 BC
Those who, from the moment they see nothing but the sky and the sea, imagine that there is no more land beyond their horizon, [are] very cowardly navigators.
1623
It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.
1855
I undertake to lay the foundations of the first philosophy, but without expecting any praise from the common people, nor hoping that my book will be seen by many.
1641
Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte (1778–1851), Daughter of Louis XVI
1795
The ruler owes the nations truth as something useful, and freedom of the press as a means of discovering it.
1772
Was it with such speeches that great States grew? [...] With convictions that servitude is no more a shame than an honor, and freedom no more an honor than a shame?
c. 108 AD
Many live thus, and die without having known true freedom.
1889
What is clearest in knowledge is its form; what remains obscure is reality.
1819
Statuette of a youth with duck
900 BCE - 100 BCE
Customary morality, that which is consecrated by education and public opinion, is the only one that presents itself to the mind as being obligatory in itself.
1861
The savage lives within himself; the sociable man, always outside himself, knows only how to live in the opinion of others, and it is [...] from their judgment alone that he derives the sense of his own existence.
1755
Day that comes so beautifully, a smile suddenly suspended over my city [...], how sweet it is for humans who receive your peace to see the day!
1968
Any mixture whatsoever [...] absolutely requires measure and proportion, otherwise it is not a mixture, but a confusion.
c. 360 BC
Madonna and Child
ca. 1470
The influence of slavery extends [...] into the very soul of the master, and gives a particular direction to his ideas and tastes.
1835-1840
One can affirm of a thing what one clearly conceives to be contained in the idea of that thing.
1707
[If precious metals became common,] no more cities, consequently, no more great fortunes. But also no more begging [...].
1776
[Their] incursions in Italy were similar to those of the Slavs and Hungarians in Germany. They could no longer make great conquests, because in Spain they were divided and weakened.
1753-1754
Limestone statuette of a male votary (worshipper)
mid-6th century BCE
Make yourself more perfect than nature has made you.
1797-1798
[This process is seen] as in the composition of ointments and medicines.
c. 253-270 AD
All past history shows that whenever such a depreciation of money occurs, the capitalists are eager to seize the opportunity to defraud the worker.
1865
To believe that the existence of the world is explained by a creator is a psychological illusion.
1841
Madonna and Child with Two Angels
1464