To act to please the world, [...] to study to be admired, to teach to get rich, to dress up in a disguise of goodness and equity [...] these are things I will never bring myself to do.
4th century BC
A sincere and justified affection [...] should be born from the knowledge they give us of themselves and grow with it, so that, if they deserve it, [...] we may come to cherish them with a truly paternal affection.
1580
How late it is to begin living at the very moment when one must cease to live!
c. 49 AD
If man does good, his soul [...] will be absorbed into the divine essence, and will no longer reanimate a body of earth.
1773
Patera
mid 6th century BCE
It is true [...] that there are [...] people who even deny natural religion, or who corrupt it extremely; but [...] this must be attributed mainly to the false philosophy of the materialists.
1715-1716
It is the irony of life that the most energetic feelings of gratitude and devotion [...] develop in us towards those who, having the power to annihilate our existence [...], are pleased to abstain from it.
1869
It is not possible [...] that evil be destroyed, for there must always be something contrary to the good; it is therefore a necessity that it circulates on this earth and around our mortal nature.
c. 253-270 AD
What is presumption in the weak, is elevation in the strong.
1746
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1680
Thus the difference of minds originates from the difference of passions and the different ends to which appetite leads them.
1772
I would rather be killed today than exiled tomorrow.
c. 108 AD
There is no essential difference between a wooden image and an imaginative image [...] The adoration of the sculpted or painted image [...] is but the external, physical manifestation of the inner, spiritual adoration.
1841
...so that the quality and durability [of the products] compel everyone to use them.
1662
Fragmentary marble sarcophagus with scenes from the Oresteia
mid-2nd century CE
Thus we are born free, as we are born rational; though we do not actually exercise either at first. Age that brings one, brings the other with it.
1690
The entire art of the legislator is to discern well in advance these natural tendencies of human societies, in order to know where it is necessary to aid the citizens' effort, and where it would be more necessary to slow it down.
1835-1840
Do you want to know when our life will be barbaric, savage, unsociable? It will be when the laws are suppressed, [...] but when at the same time doctrines that invite us to pleasure are maintained.
1st Century A.D.
It is always four or five who maintain the tyrant, four or five who keep the whole country in servitude.
c. 1552-1553
Fragment of a limestone funerary stele with a disk and a crescent
2nd half of the 6th century BCE
If [the propositions of a syllogism] were perfectly equal, one would say nothing more than the other, and we would be no more advanced at the third than at the first.
1817
They are domestic enemies, with whom being forced to converse, one is obliged to be constantly on guard, in order to prevent them from causing harm.
1643-1649
You will feel that you are in a devilishly precarious line of work for a timorous soul.
1741-1784
To know what [a social fact] is objectively, it is not enough to develop the content of the idea we have of it, but we must treat it as an objective fact, observe, and compare.
1893
Italian Landscape
ca. 1825–28
I have found that all those who associated with me had the same opinion of me.
4th century BC
All deliberations [...] shall be decided by the minority of members present; [...] those who obtain the fewest votes shall always be the ones who prevail.
16th century
From this Dionysus's smile the gods were born; from his tears, men.
1872
Sublime authors, lower your models a little, if you want people to try to imitate them.
1761
The Sacrifice of Polyxena
1630
Interest is the sole dispenser of the esteem or contempt that nations have for their different morals, customs, and ways of thinking.
1758
Where men are not masters of their own persons, they care little for military training, but only to appear unfit for military service.
c. 350 B.C.E.
A man who has never left his country usually imagines that the morals and customs of foreigners are contrary to reason because they are contrary to the custom of his own city [...].
1674-1675
A very intelligent blind man could, with what he has heard about colors, compose a theory of them.
1819
John Churchill (1650–1722), First Duke of Marlborough
1698
Can one admire without loving? And if admiration is a love, how does one dare to love anything other than the good?
1943
All prediction is in reality a vision.
1889
Imperfect discourse [...] holds the mind in suspense, because it is missing something, which is why it is imperfect.
c. 1270
This skill of promptly distracting others' attention and taking away their leisure to reflect on a fault is not the mark of a mediocre mind.
1636
Terracotta statuette of a draped woman
2nd century BCE
The Imperial Constitution [...] was at the same time, full of contradiction as it was, the most liberal constitution in all Germany. Its greatest fault was that it was a mere sheet of paper, with no power to back up its provisions.
1851-1852
In this case, a tacit suspicion does more harm than a thing explained at length.
86-82 BC
The limits we raise to circumscribe each science intercept the light and necessarily cast shadows. Let us remove the limits, and at once the shadows dissipate.
1768
Human reason does not have wings powerful enough to cross the high clouds that hide the mysteries of the other world from our eyes.
1766
Nail
7000 BCE - 330 CE
His painting, successful in its details, is incoherent as a whole.
1926
I have, from an early age, distrusted all the decisions of philosophers: & I have always felt more inclined to dispute their dogmas than to embrace them.
1742
The foundation and object of this government [democracy] is [...] to check the disorders of appetite and to keep men, as far as possible, within the limits of reason, so that they may live together in peace and concord.
1670
Once the main dogmas and principles of religion have been [...] entirely removed from the examination of reason; only then is it permissible to deduce [...] consequences from them.
1623
Bronze statuette of an actor
ca. 1st–2nd century CE