Great thoughts come from the heart.
1747
The only [power] that has been given to you is that of convincing yourself.
c. 108 AD
I shall not consider myself certain until you are on my side.
1643-1662
one must not be too rigorous when it comes to satisfying our love of the marvelous.
1755
Self-Portrait
ca. 1850
To believe that the existence of the world is explained by a creator is a psychological illusion.
1841
The wife is actually the slave of her husband, no less, within the limits of legal obligation, than are slaves properly so called.
1869
The king wants to be obeyed, and obeyed instantly.
1769
My body, an object meant to move objects, is therefore a center of action; it cannot give rise to a representation.
1896
The Huis ten Bosch at The Hague and Its Formal Garden (View from the South)
ca. 1668–70
We currently find ourselves in a state of unstable social equilibrium that should be transformed [...] into a stable equilibrium.
1934-1942
Gold and silver must therefore enter and leave freely. It is then that wealth will be balanced among all provinces: all will be in abundance through the exchange of their labor.
1776
A hasty prosperity followed by rapid successes is usually suspect and threatens a prompt change.
1636
Man is sicker, more uncertain, more changeable [...] he is the sick animal par excellence: where does this come from? Assuredly, he has dared more, innovated more, defied more, provoked destiny more than all the other animals combined.
1887
Terracotta group of women seated around a well head
2nd half of 4th century BCE
It was less [...] human reason that [the philosophers] adored than their own reason. Never has less confidence been shown than by them in common wisdom. [...] Submission [...] to the will of the majority was as foreign to them as submission to divine will.
1856
I am going to consult a more certain oracle, it is the voice of my inclinations, it is the cry of my passions. It is this, and not your frivolous writings, which can instruct me in the precepts of nature.
1742
How many men have died; and how many others will die without having shown what they were! I would gladly compare them to superb paintings hidden in a dark gallery [...].
1773
If men were very enlightened, universal approval would be a reason: but it is quite the contrary.
1674-1675
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1520–25
Universal suffrage had fulfilled its mission. [...] It had to be abolished, either by a revolution or by the reaction.
1850
Apposition is the contact of bodies at their surfaces, as in heaps of wheat.
c. 253-270 AD
The ordinary analysis of the Cartesians is found to be very inadequate for difficult problems.
1686
All the more reason, then, to permit freedom of thought, which is a virtue and cannot be suppressed.
1670
Bronze tweezers
1st–2nd century CE
One ordinarily judges what others will do by what one would want to do if one were in their place.
1643-1649
To work is better [...] than to govern and command, where the exercise of power does not yield great profits; for men in general prefer money to honors.
c. 350 BCE
What is intended in marriage is not the pleasure of the mind, but the procreation of children; marriage is a union of hearts, not of heads.
1819
The superior man gazes into the depths of the azure sky, into the depths of the terrestrial abysses, [...] without his vital spirits being in the least disturbed.
4th century BC
Lower right corner of a marble sarcophagus, illustrating the discovery of Achilles by Odysseus on the island of Skyros
ca. 160–180 CE
Everything that our reason and our intelligence alone produce, both what is true and what is false, is subject to uncertainty and debate.
1580
[It is] the work that renewed idealist art, restored faith in the idea, put back in their logical places the World, which is appearance, and the Idea, which is being.
1926
[A leader], by restoring the statues of [his rival], had strengthened his own.
100-120 AD
[It is] the opinion [...] that words, arranged in a certain way, can alter the will of their god, and oblige him to change his immutable decrees.
1766
Portrait of a Man, Possibly Ottavio Farnese (1524–1586), Duke of Parma and Piacenza
1563
His liberalism had not been understood, and he saw [...] that the religious question served as a pretext for the exercise of many selfish passions.
c. 1552-1553
To please private circles, it is not necessary for the horizon of our ideas to be very broad. To distinguish oneself [...], one must undertake very different studies.
1758
To demand that men should constantly use words in the same sense [...] would be to imagine that all men should have the same notions, and speak only of things of which they have clear and distinct ideas.
1689
Everyone must strive to live as honorably as possible and not dishonor the reputation of their ancestors.
c. 387 BC
The Dispatch-Bearer
?1879
It is certain that nothing is rarer among human writings than a history that is well-made and accomplished in all its points.
1623
In alteration [...], an intrinsic form is acquired. [...] But in local motion, what is acquired is 'where' (ubi), which names extrinsically.
c. 1270
We may lack the time to act; we will always have enough time to talk.
1518
Philosophy is nothing other than [...] the science of living honestly, or, the art of following the right path in life.
circa 65 AD
Terracotta statuette of Harpocrates
2nd century CE
This is not courage, it is recklessness; courage [...] scorns fatigue and danger for a useful motive, [...] recklessness braves fatigue without reason.
86-82 BC
[Certain] ideas are so general that they muddle all branches of our knowledge as long as they remain vague.
1817
The division of labor presupposes that the worker, far from remaining bent over his task, does not lose sight of his immediate collaborators [...]. He feels that he is of some use.
1893
It will always be great and beautiful to reign over oneself, even if it is to obey fantastic opinions.
1762
Circus Sideshow (Parade de cirque)
1887–88