This mathematical calculation of the unknown motion of a celestial body [...] awaits its confirmation from future observations.
1755
All commonly well-organized men have an equal aptitude for intelligence.
1772
He must wish, after having thus known what he is, to also know where he comes from, and what he is to become.
1670
The only effect I have observed from the use of the rod is to make souls more cowardly or to make them more obstinate in evil.
1580
Flora
ca. 1654
Why then be indignant, since you have what is best!
c. 108 AD
Justice implies something which it is not only right to do, and wrong not to do, but which some individual person can claim from us as a moral right.
1861
In the handling of affairs, there are no teachings so good or certain as those given by experience. [...] The experience one gains on oneself teaches more and imprints better.
c. 1552-1553
These words, slave and right, are contradictory; they are mutually exclusive.
1762
Madonna and Child with Saints Francis and Catherine of Siena
about 1476–80
As I suffer an unjust death, [...] the shame does not fall upon me, but upon those who have condemned me.
4th century BC
One must apply oneself [...] to possessing all these resources, or if not, at least the most important ones [...], especially today when poets are violently attacked.
c. 335 BC
We only enjoy other people; the rest is nothing.
1746
Each being, taken in itself without any relation to other things, contains a perfection that is limited only by its own essence.
1661-1676
Limestone statuette of a female votary
3900 BCE - 100 CE
Often a man of merit ends up with a beast, or a wise woman falls into the hands of a fool.
1518
The invention of all these machines is founded on a single principle, which is that the same force that can lift a weight [...] of one hundred pounds to a height of two feet, can also lift one of two hundred pounds to a height of one foot [...].
1637
What, in the end, are man's truths? — They are his irrefutable errors.
1882
My present is, in essence, sensory-motor. This is to say that my present consists in the consciousness I have of my body.
1896
Statue of a man
6th century BCE or later
A ruler cannot give to one class without taking from another.
1851/1852
In what was believed [...] to be a simple idea, a single perception, there are many distinct parts; and [...] many different intellectual operations were necessary to assemble these parts.
1805
[...] the army that first gets tired of the noise has lost the battle.
1764
Among all these [...] gentle creatures [...] there is hardly one [...] that could not be turned into a ferocious beast.
1760
Buckle
7000 BCE - 330 CE
Organic solidarity is only possible if each one has a sphere of action which is peculiar to him; a personality, consequently.
1893
[Love] is that insatiable and infinite desire of the soul, [...] itself moved by a perpetual and never-satiated desire.
c. 253-270 AD
We form our idea of God by extending to infinity the ideas of knowledge, power, etc., that we find in ourselves through reflection.
1689
The men who tremble most before the laws are the most intrepid against the enemy; and those who most dread suffering are those who least fear blame.
100-120 AD
The Virgin Annunciate
possibly 1445–50
Exercise this soul in the most excellent functions. There are none higher than to watch over the salvation of the homeland.
54-51 BC
The immediate cause of the inability to learn is prejudice, and the cause of prejudice is a false opinion of our own knowledge.
1772
They are duped neither by the honesty of men nor by the chastity of women and never speak of virtue without a certain smile, which says more than their words.
1926
I have rid myself of all desire to be called learned [...]. Whether what they say is true or false, to let men speak is to spare oneself the trouble of answering them.
4th century BC
Gabbro mace head
ca. 2500–1900 BCE
A solid and sure judgment, and a spirit all of fire, are [...] qualities that attract the name of prodigy to the man in whom they are united.
1636
This expression, 'the dignity of man', once used by Kant, then served as a shibboleth for all moralists without ideas or purpose.
1840
For a relation to be real, five things are required: two on the side of the subject, two on the side of the term, and one on the side of the things that are the object of the relation.
c. 1270
There is nothing so beautiful as truth: one must not pretend to be able to make it more beautiful by painting it with sensible colors.
1674-1675
Saint Nicholas of Tolentino Reviving a Child
ca. 1530
Where unnatural virtue passes for the supreme virtue, [...] there the aesthetic sense, the supreme condition of art, is decreed banished.
1842-1845
Having all seen their loved ones defiled or killed, each one will hasten to submit to what he hates.
1968
I esteem a man whose self-love [...] is so directed as to give him a concern for others and to make himself useful to society.
1751
A balance is not an agent: it is entirely passive [...] But intelligent beings are agents; they are not merely passive, and motives do not act upon them as weights act upon a balance.
1715-1716
Lead figure of a woman
late 7th–early 6th century BCE
It [philosophy] shows what is evil, and what only appears to be so; it strips us of our illusions, it gives solid greatness.
63-64 AD
There are never more inhabitants in a country than the number it can feed.
1776
Feelings and ideas are renewed, the heart enlarged, and the human mind developed only by the reciprocal action of men upon one another.
1835-1840
To its faith are committed the examples of our ancestors, the vicissitudes of things, the foundations of civil prudence [...].
1623
Venice from the Bacino di San Marco
ca. 1765–75