The most ridiculous and boldest hopes have often been the cause of extraordinary successes.
1746
For respect [...] there is only one possibility of indirect expression, which is provided by the needs of men in this world, the earthly needs of the soul and the body.
1957
Not only is [a brilliant deed] necessary to begin to gain credit, it is indispensable to preserve and increase it.
1513-1519
By this process an annual wage [...] can be paid with a single sovereign coin, turning every week in the same circle.
1865
Saint John on Patmos
ca. 1511
Men, for the most part, hold to their religion only by habit; they have never seriously examined the reasons that attach them to it, the motives for their conduct, the foundations of their opinions.
1766
[...] one sees people in the streets waiting for a carriage [...], but when it arrives, it is found to be full: this is unfortunate, but one takes comfort, for one knows that another will come.
1662
This most necessary history, the ancients entirely neglected, or at least the testimonies [...] have perished through the ravages of time, leaving [...] a forever deplorable gap.
1670
[Reason] teaches us that we should not truly fear death, but also that we should never seek it.
1643-1649
Terracotta statuette of a woman
early 3rd century BCE
Disorder exists only because of order, lawlessness only because of the law, unreason only because of reason, because the order, law, and reason seen here below are only borrowed.
c. 253-270 AD
Mental stillness attracts those who seek wisdom, just as still water attracts those who wish to see their reflection. No one goes to see their reflection in running water.
4th century BC
What do I care if he makes whores, as long as the whores don't make ministers?
1773
Happiness is always in proportion to virtue and wisdom, and to submission to their laws, taking as witness [...] God himself, whose supreme felicity does not depend on external goods.
c. 350 BCE
Bronze cinerary urn with lid
ca. 500 BCE
Another care must fill the course of my life; it is to [...] keep the friends I have tested in adversity.
September 57 BC
The revelation of truth can only be odious to those impostors who present the enlightened people as seditious, and the stupefied people as docile.
1772
This itch [to philosophize] must be regarded as one of nature's beneficent institutions; it uses it to preserve man [...] from falling into decay.
1796
To reduce life to laws and methods is to take on a difficult task, and most often a frivolous one.
1742
The Organ Rehearsal
1885
Meaning is to a noun as its form, while the letter or syllables are its matter.
c. 1270
No one is responsible for the fact that man exists [...]. One is necessary, one is a piece of destiny, one belongs to the whole, one is in the whole.
1888
Frequent pardons announce that crimes will soon need them no longer, and everyone sees where that leads.
1762
Happiness is the opposite of truth, which one always finds as soon as one seeks it; one sometimes encounters it only if one does not think about it [...].
1926
Statuette of a warrior-10
7000 BCE - 30 BCE
Things would have no value for us if we did not judge that they have qualities suited to our uses. Their value lies therefore principally in the judgment we make of their utility.
1776
[The diversion] is a shameless strategy for attacking your opponent.
1830-1831
[Our curiosity was to] visit some of those Indian tribes who preferred to flee into the wildest solitudes rather than submit to what whites call the delights of social life.
1864-1866
'Our god is money, our religion is profit'.
1896
A Winter Landscape with Ice Skaters and an Imaginary Castle
ca. 1615–20
Ambition, avarice, irresolution, fear, and our desires do not abandon us when we change countries.
1580
To illustrate an idea is not to prove it.
1895
It is this double character of eloquence and truth that has made him so powerful over all vivid imaginations.
100-120 AD
If I can [...] by resorting to paper, make some honest man speak what I feel, my spirits, fed by this freedom, immediately regain new strength.
1574
Cavalier and Shepherd
1747
Why be surprised [...] if divinity judges it more advantageous for me to leave this life at this very moment?
4th century BC
Our ideas are subject to error only through the judgments that mix with them; and yet our judgments are in themselves as immune to error as all our other perceptions.
1805
The multiplicity of dishes has multiplied diseases.
63-64 AD
It is a great question [...] whether they descended from monkeys, or if monkeys came from them.
1772
Heinrich(?) vom Rhein zum Mohren (1477–1536)
late 1520s
The question, 'Need I obey my conscience?' is as present to those who never heard of the principle of utility, as to utilitarians.
1861
A testimony has less force and authority, the more distant it is from the original truth. [...] as a tradition passes successively through more hands, it has ever the less strength and evidence.
1689
Scientific research, as recommended by Claude Bernard, is a dialogue between man and nature.
1915
It is wrong to claim to be a Stoic because one speaks the language of Stoicism, when one does not have its maxims in one's heart, and especially when one does not apply them.
c. 108 AD
Statuette of a man
4th–1st century BCE
Motion is independent of observation, but [...] it is not independent of observability. There is no motion when there is no observable change.
1715-1716
There is no difference between letting one's passion be seen, and lending certain weapons for others to make themselves our master.
1636
What is true in Spain is false in France; what is true in Paris is false in Rome; what is certain among the Jacobins is uncertain among the Cordeliers [...].
1674-1675
Others skim over everything, and attach themselves only to the bulk of events.
1623
Marble capital and finial in the form of a sphinx
ca. 530 BCE