Invention is the sole proof of genius.
1746
If the universe is sympathetic to itself because it constitutes one animal, and if we are affected because we are contained within this one animal [...], why would continuity not be necessary for us to sense a distant object?
c. 253-270 AD
He who has not gotten to the bottom of things, however ancient he may be, is not in my eyes an authority [...].
4th century BC
The reduplicative proposition [...] requires for its truth that that on which the reduplication falls expresses the cause of what is carried by the predicate.
c. 1270
Terracotta head of a youth
2nd century BCE (?)
We must not, therefore, treat the mind as if it were what it is 'for nothing, for pleasure'.
1932
What does a superior mind matter, if the heart does not match it?
1636
Truth is only perceived and generated in the fermentation of contrary opinions.
1758
To live without committing the slightest injustice is, in my eyes, the most beautiful way to prepare my defense.
4th century BC
Terracotta head with wreath
ca. 600–480 BCE
If morality is allowed to penetrate law, it invades it, and if it does not penetrate it, it remains a dead letter, a pure abstraction, instead of being an effective discipline of wills.
1893
Montaigne is slightly mistaken...
c. 1552-1553
If a [dissenting] opinion is right, [others] are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if it is wrong, they lose an almost equally great benefit: the clearer perception of truth, produced by its collision with error.
1859
It is always in spite of itself that a soul is deprived of the truth. The error appeared to it as a truth. That is all.
c. 108 AD
Spoon probe
3900 BCE - 100 CE
This makes me confess, without shame, to have found in myself all the causes of error that you point out.
1643-1649
The characteristic and fundamental trait of his mind, in political matters, was hatred and contempt for assemblies.
1893
Most men seem incapable of concluding anything from the first principle of morality.
1674-1675
Man believes he leads his life, directs himself; and his inner life is irresistibly made by his destiny.
1836
Bronze thymiaterion (incense burner)
ca. 325–275 BCE
'Condensation is the proper work of the creative intelligence'.
1896
We can [...] place cleanliness among the virtues [...] it makes us agreeable to others & serves to win their friendship & goodwill.
1751
[...] one should not exclude from civil society Pagans, nor Mohammedans, nor Jews, because of the religion they profess.
1686
To get a clear idea of the elements of Natural Law and Politics, it is important to know the nature of Man.
1772
Bronze floral element
ca. 550–500 BCE
It cannot [...] be a matter of indifference to morality whether or not one forms the concept of a final end of all things.
1793
There is no shame in receiving the prize for such great services; but to refuse is more glorious still.
100-120 AD
If men were ordinarily to rise from the grave, as wheat grows from seed, we would certainly say that this too was a natural thing.
1715-1716
To judge is not [...] the faculty of sensing relationships in general: but [...] it is solely the special faculty of sensing between one idea and another, the relationship of the container to the contained.
1803
Buckle with lion and boar
1st–3rd century CE
It is not [...] science that suppresses philosophy: it is already suppressed in the real development of which it was only the distorted reflection.
1841
[...] if we can both get out of this land invaded and inhabited by cannibals [...].
1772
The materialist method, this instrument bequeathed to us by Marx, is a virgin instrument; no Marxist has ever truly used it, starting with Marx himself.
1934
A writer so full of research, so clear, so abundant, and who puts so much soul into everything he says, could he not be truly profound!
45 BC
Bronze jug
ca. 6th–early 5th century BCE
Let us therefore arrange each of our days as if it were the last in line, as if it were finishing and completing our life.
63-64 AD
He established the rule of his life [...] on two main maxims, which are to renounce all pleasure, and all superfluity.
1670
The foundation of all states was a good militia, and [...] where it does not exist, there can be neither good laws nor any other good thing.
1513-1519
Doubtless there are things superior to our reason; but I will boldly reject everything that is repugnant to it, everything that shocks it.
1763
Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist and Angels
1460
[To make a] critique of the most harmful type of ignorance, morality.
1888
There are not three rainbows, and even less so more, because the second is already very faint; so that the third refraction would be excessively weak [...].
c. 334 BC
This force [...] is itself without cause, and consequently inexplicable.
1620
In them [women], everything is instinct, and, consequently, nothing is culpable.
1926
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1800
Men are so constituted [...] that there is nothing they bear with more impatience than to see opinions they consider true be held against them as a crime.
1670
The feeling fades in the end; but the sensitive soul always remains.
1761
To confirm these rumors, they would make simulated sales among themselves, publicly in the markets [...] at the lowest price.
1776
It is very difficult to assign a limit to the faculties of the soul, much more so than to the bodily forces [...].
1580
Limestone statuette of a boy holding a duck
late 4th century–3rd century BCE