Our character is still us [...].
1889
In all difficult moral questions [...], I have always found it best to resolve them by the dictates of my conscience, rather than by the light of my reason.
1776-1778
One finds [...] the fundamental, insurmountable antagonism between the mindset of the artist and that of the politician.
1896
As man is the best of animals when perfected, so he is the worst of all when separated from law and justice.
c. 350 BCE
Santa Maria della Salute
mid- to late 1760s
Heresy is a separation [...] among men who profess the same religion, because of certain dogmas that are not contained in their rule.
1686
We [...] beseech, in the most urgent manner, to meet our expectations.
1498
Freed from the fear of laws or reprisals, man's injustices have no other measure than that of his power.
1772
If to have liberty it is necessary only to desire it, if only a simple act of will is needed, will there be any nation in the world that still deems it too expensive [...]?
c. 1552-1553
Marble bust of a bearded man
ca. 150–175 CE
Convinced that the only way to recover from all the evils caused by the civil wars was the authority of one man, they named him perpetual dictator.
100-120 AD
An imperfect reason is far above an absence of reason.
1746
[...] heat is the cause of heating.
c. 1270
Often the Americans call a laudable industry what we name the love of gain, and they see a certain faintness of heart in what we consider the moderation of desires.
1835-1840
The Huis ten Bosch at The Hague and Its Formal Garden (View from the South)
ca. 1668–70
[Nature] leaves to experience the task of making us form habits, and of completing the work it has begun.
1754
Infinitely small is that by which he is still a man; infinitely great is that by which he is one with heaven.
4th century BC
The more terrible the god, the more docile and submissive we are to his ministers.
1757
[Evil] consists in privation, that is, in what the efficient cause does not do. This is why the Scholastics used to call the cause of evil deficient.
c. 253-270 AD
Terracotta plank-shaped figurine
ca. 2000–1800 BCE
Sharp minds are those who notice by reason the slightest differences in things [...]. But weak minds have only a false delicacy; they are neither quick nor piercing.
1674-1675
The more perfect a thing is, the more it partakes of the Divinity and the more it expresses its perfections.
1661-1676
What troubles [...] the years of youth [...] is the hunt for happiness, undertaken on the firm assumption that it can be found in life. This is the source of ever-disappointed hope, which in turn breeds discontent.
1851
At the same time as domestic obligations become more numerous, they take on [...] a public character.
1893
Woman Standing Beside a Balustrade with a Poodle
ca. 1895
Wit, more often than fortune, comes to us while we sleep.
1926
There is no possibility of satisfying a people's need for truth if one cannot find for this purpose men who love the truth.
1943
Most write only poor and popular accounts, which are the disgrace of history.
1623
Not only are these raindrops pure phenomena, but even their round shape and the very space in which they fall are nothing in themselves.
1781
Bronze phiale (libation bowl) with four swinging handles
ca. 550 BCE
The philosopher is to artists what a pentathlete is to a runner or a wrestler.
End of the 4th century BC
They are no longer friends, they are—what am I saying?—ghosts of friends!
1886
The less a man is fitted for the possession of power, [...] the more he congratulates himself on the power which the law gives him.
1869
The surest way to deceive men and to perpetuate their prejudices is to deceive them in childhood.
1766
Marble relief fragment with the head of Mars
early 3rd century CE
Nature desires very little; opinion would have the infinite.
63-64 AD
To carefully examine the subject one wishes to know before passing judgment on it; and to know precisely what one wants to say about it before speaking of it.
1805
Can our new masters, whose glory is to have been born to enlighten and reform reason, decently reason like the rest of mortals?
1765
How common it is for a happy man to deceive himself about the immutability of his happiness!
1636
Terracotta head of a woman
late 4th–early 3rd century BCE
The democrat, because he represents an intermediate class, in which the interests of two classes are blunted, imagines himself elevated above class antagonism altogether.
1851/1852
Since it is necessary for man, superstitious by nature, to have a fetish, the simplest and most innocent fetish will be the best of all.
1741-1784
A craftsman who speaks of riches, a prosecutor who speaks of war [...]. But the rich man speaks well of riches, the king speaks coldly of a great gift he has just made, and God speaks well of God.
1670
I find the effort to endure evils very difficult, but to be content with a modest fortune and to shun greatness, I find very little difficulty in that.
1580
Saint Bernardino
ca. 1460–70
...philosophers were forbidden to teach in Athens.
45 BC
If we were afraid, not of death and exile, but of fear itself, it is fear that we would strive to avoid as an evil.
c. 108 AD
[...] it is not the pulley that causes this force, but only the movement of the rope which is double that of the weight [...].
1637
Geometric determinations imply an absolute necessity, the contrary of which implies contradiction, but Architectonic ones only imply a necessity of choice, the contrary of which implies imperfection.
1697
Limestone funerary stele with antithetical sphinxes
ca. 475–450 BCE