The fortunate [...] feel adversity much more keenly than those who have already experienced it.
1636
The duties of men gathered in society, that is morality; the reciprocal interests of these societies, that is politics; their obligations towards God, that is religion.
1746
And if, in the end, we are condemned to death, let us die as free men. [...] Let such an outrage no longer stain even our thoughts, our ears, our eyes.
63 BC
[People] consequently create new needs for themselves, and they consume more than they did before.
1776
Flora
ca. 1654
It is agreed that [the soul] has a true and perfect unity and a true self, and that it communicates in some way this unity [...] to the whole composed of the soul and the body which is called man.
1686
There is nothing [...] that does not serve the public good of the present time.
1574
Often the known truth becomes fatal to the one who discovers it.
1st Century AD
It is because [the true Li] always follows very simple Laws [...] that storms form and ravage the harvests [...]. It is the same conduct that produces such different effects.
1707
A Peasant Woman Picking Fleas off a Dog
ca. 1626–27
It is by coveting what is not yours that you will lose what is yours.
c. 108 AD
One does not write as one hems, and ideas cannot be picked up again when they are cut, as one reties the ends of a thread.
1741-1784
To pass ever-just judgments, one would have to be free from all the passions that corrupt our judgment [...]: for this purpose, one would have to know everything.
1758
No one wants to live today; no one is content with the present hour, all find it passes too slowly.
1762
Halt of Caravans at the Wells of Saba (Beersheba) in the Desert South of Hebron
1850
Students and 'intellectuals' [...] are linked to Him by the words 'I am the Truth.' (This is no small responsibility.)
1962
The precept: You shall not lie [...], taken internally as a principle in philosophy [...] would not only have the advantage of establishing a perpetual peace therein, but also of ensuring its future forever.
1796
I willingly begin without a plan; the first stroke produces the second.
1580
Habitus is the adjacency of bodies and of that which surrounds them.
c. 1270
Bronze tweezers
1st–2nd century CE
The shame [...] consists not in giving more than one has promised, but in being forced to give; and it is a humiliating necessity which circumstances make law for us.
100-120 AD
There can be no authentic consumption without production. The representation of communism as a consumer's paradise must be banished.
1841
When we think of the infinite power of God, we cannot help but believe that all things depend on Him, and, consequently, that our free will is not exempt from it.
1643-1649
Those [things] which are in our power are those which we bring about in accordance with the order of nature of which we are a part.
c. 1660
Saints John the Baptist and Matthew
possibly 1433
Political societies have been founded on nothing other than the consent of the people.
1690
The version of the story that satisfies the mind is the one where Iseut is not humiliated, nor is Tristan suspected of having deceived his beloved.
1926
By our special grace, full power, and royal authority, we have [...] granted the power, faculty, permission, and privilege to have and to establish...
1662
He preferred the care of his life to the care of the empire. How much more would he have preferred the care of his life to lesser cares?
4th century BC
Tobias Curing His Father's Blindness
1630–35
Decency, or the observance of the regard due to the age, sex, station, and character of a person, may be counted among the qualities that are agreeable to others and deserve to be approved.
1751
We know that the bad tendencies of human nature are kept within their limits only when they are not allowed to run free.
1869
[...] there is neither multitude nor wealth that does not yield to courage...
c. 350 B.C.E.
Education is the action exercised by the adult generations on those that are not yet ripe for social life.
1922
Cow in a Barn
1822
To be truly clever, one must avoid appearing so and sometimes even seem a fool.
1609
Instead of reading books, one must read one's own conceptions, and it is in this sense that [...] the famous words 'Know thyself' may be worthy of the reputation they have acquired.
1772
Such is the consequence of presenting the same idea under one aspect or another, that [...] I firmly believed I had not learned it from Condillac.
1801
In democracies, [men] are divided by a multitude of small, almost invisible threads, which are broken at every moment and constantly change place.
1835-1840
Standing Herakles (?)
ca. 600–480 BCE
Every animal is sympathetic to itself. [...] all things will experience common affections insofar as they constitute parts of the one animal.
c. 253-270 AD
Is not pleasure most often an absence of pain?
c. 360 BC
A consciousness that was merely a duplicate, and that did not act, would have long since disappeared from the universe, assuming it had ever arisen there.
1919
Supreme virtue no more destroys free will than the spiritual life annihilates personality: on the contrary, it completes it, and is its highest expression.
1839
Madonna and Child
1425
The imprudence of men sometimes excites them to take up the defense of others, while they neither know how nor are able to protect themselves from danger.
1513-1519
We notice here with sorrow that we have omitted the article on cats; but we console ourselves by referring to their history.
1764
Justice [...] ends, like everything excellent in this world, by destroying itself. This self-destruction of justice [...] is called grace.
1887
Never has a man lived who cared less for what we mean by the words glory and success.
1896
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand Périgord (1754–1838), Prince de Bénévent
1808