The course of an individual's life, however complicated it may appear, forms an orderly whole, having its determined tendency and its meaningful significance, just like the most carefully composed epic.
1836
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
Any given object does not produce a single, unique affection in us; it is a multitude of different impressions [...].
1805
He who has modest tastes does not create trouble for himself; he who is concerned only with his inner progress is not affected by any deprivation.
4th century BC
Capriccio with St. Paul's and Old London Bridge
ca. 1745
A mind that occupies itself night and day with meditations attains that knowledge so recommended by the oracle of Delphi: self-knowledge.
45 BC
Why be surprised [...] if the divinity judges it more advantageous for me to leave this life at this very moment?
4th century BC
Better an end with horror than a horror without end.
1851/1852
Pope Alexander VI divided the two new worlds [...] everything to the east [...] was to belong to Portugal; everything to the west was given to Spain.
1756
Bronze rod tripod
ca. 1250–1050 BCE
Of all the things proper to mortify human vanity, there is perhaps none more humiliating than to see the weakness [...] of the efforts of art [...] when it comes to equalling nature.
1742
One can only think and write while seated.
1888
The property of 'where' (ubi) is to be in every terminated body [...], because place is not due to the indivisible as such.
c. 1270
Friendship is a sacred name, it is a holy thing; [...] There can be no friendship where there is cruelty, where there is disloyalty, where there is injustice.
c. 1552-1553
Arm fragment of Aphrodite
30 BCE–CE 364
Uprootedness breeds idolatry.
1943
This feeling, when disinterested, and connecting itself with the pure idea of duty [...] forms the essence of Conscience.
1861
These precautions are the only good ones for ensuring that the general will is always enlightened, and that the people are not mistaken.
1762
[My] character does not lead me to flattery [...] I have more often spoken as a free man than as a slave.
55-56 AD
Bronze trowel or cutter
2nd millennium BCE
When one must apply theory to practice, [...] these riddles are no longer an amusement, and if one cannot solve them, they become a source of anxiety.
1609
The fires of dawn are not as sweet as the first glances of glory.
1746
[...] the mercenary soldier should be greedy for money and pleasure, so that, to obtain the means to satisfy his passions, he would expose himself with greater audacity to all dangers.
100-120 AD
By nature naturing, we understand a being that, by itself [...], can be known clearly and distinctly, such as God is.
c. 1660
Terracotta head from a statue
ca. 525–500 BCE
[...] the flatly ironic turn of phrase, which wounds even more than insult.
1765-1769
Works of art have [...] more value when they are of a nature that can only be made by a small number of artisans, as they are then rarer.
1776
We consider the abstract ideas of the pure understanding only with disgust and without much application.
1674-1675
Men are driven from one ambition to another; they first seek to secure themselves from offense, and then to oppress their rivals.
1855
Circus Sideshow (Parade de cirque)
1887–88
[...] the people [...] have become accustomed to servitude; their soul has lost its energy; no strong passion sets it in motion.
1772
The quest for public office becomes the most pursued of all industries.
1835-1840
The insights of geometry, physics, and mechanics provided me with the design, and assured me that its use would be infallible if some craftsman could form the instrument whose model I had imagined.
1642-1645
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
Terracotta statuette base
3rd century BCE
In the language of scoundrels, no one has intelligence who does not value others at his own worth, that is to say, who also holds them to be scoundrels.
1764
The way that serves to establish [a tyrant], however harsh it may be, always does less harm to the public than a sovereignty contested by arms.
1643-1649
Copying is so tempting for the lazy; it is such a restful form of activity!
1926
[Humanity is a] virtue of profane morality, which it is necessary to stifle when one wants to be a good Christian; it almost never accords with the interests of the Divinity.
1768
Man Weighing Gold
ca. 1515–20
While repressive law tends to remain diffuse throughout society, restitutive law creates increasingly specialized organs.
1893
A voluntary agreement gives [...] political power, to rulers and Princes, for the benefit of their subjects, so that these subjects may possess their own property in safety.
1690
By induction, one passes from the particular to the general, and from the known to the unknown. Things of sensation are more known [...] at least for the common people.
End of the 4th century BC
The most common way to soften hearts [...] is to move them to pity through submission: However, bravery and constancy, complete opposites, have sometimes served the same purpose.
1580
Bronze floral element
ca. 550–500 BCE
The very pain that pity causes you to feel makes you worthy of pity.
c. 108 AD
That which passes through the air does not always affect it and often merely divides it.
c. 253-270 AD
We are free when our acts emanate from our whole personality, when they express it, when they have that indefinable resemblance to it which one sometimes finds between the artist and his work.
1889
While one has been obliged to explain their communication by a sort of miracle, one has always given reason to fear that the distinction between the body and the soul was not as real as is believed.
1696
Edward Smith Stanley (1752–1834), Twelfth Earl of Derby, Elizabeth, Countess of Derby (Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, 1753–1797), and Their Son (Edward Smith Stanley, 1775–1851)
ca. 1776