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Dead Smart People

When you're tired of listening to living idiots.

Français

The course of an individual's life, however complicated it may appear, forms an orderly whole, having its determined tendency and its meaningful significance, just like the most carefully composed epic.

1836

The habit of success is so flattering that most people always aspire to new successes [...], like those with dropsy who cannot quench their thirst.

1636

Any given object does not produce a single, unique affection in us; it is a multitude of different impressions [...].

1805

He who has modest tastes does not create trouble for himself; he who is concerned only with his inner progress is not affected by any deprivation.

4th century BC

Antonio Joli

Capriccio with St. Paul's and Old London Bridge

Capriccio with St. Paul's and Old London Bridge

ca. 1745

A mind that occupies itself night and day with meditations attains that knowledge so recommended by the oracle of Delphi: self-knowledge.

45 BC

Why be surprised [...] if the divinity judges it more advantageous for me to leave this life at this very moment?

4th century BC

Better an end with horror than a horror without end.

1851/1852

Pope Alexander VI divided the two new worlds [...] everything to the east [...] was to belong to Portugal; everything to the west was given to Spain.

1756

Cypriot artist

Bronze rod tripod

Bronze rod tripod

ca. 1250–1050 BCE

Of all the things proper to mortify human vanity, there is perhaps none more humiliating than to see the weakness [...] of the efforts of art [...] when it comes to equalling nature.

1742

One can only think and write while seated.

1888

The property of 'where' (ubi) is to be in every terminated body [...], because place is not due to the indivisible as such.

c. 1270

Friendship is a sacred name, it is a holy thing; [...] There can be no friendship where there is cruelty, where there is disloyalty, where there is injustice.

c. 1552-1553

Egyptian; el-Bahnasa

Arm fragment of Aphrodite

Arm fragment of Aphrodite

30 BCE–CE 364

Uprootedness breeds idolatry.

1943

This feeling, when disinterested, and connecting itself with the pure idea of duty [...] forms the essence of Conscience.

1861

These precautions are the only good ones for ensuring that the general will is always enlightened, and that the people are not mistaken.

1762

[My] character does not lead me to flattery [...] I have more often spoken as a free man than as a slave.

55-56 AD

Minoan

Bronze trowel or cutter

Bronze trowel or cutter

2nd millennium BCE

When one must apply theory to practice, [...] these riddles are no longer an amusement, and if one cannot solve them, they become a source of anxiety.

1609

The fires of dawn are not as sweet as the first glances of glory.

1746

[...] the mercenary soldier should be greedy for money and pleasure, so that, to obtain the means to satisfy his passions, he would expose himself with greater audacity to all dangers.

100-120 AD

By nature naturing, we understand a being that, by itself [...], can be known clearly and distinctly, such as God is.

c. 1660

Greek Artist, South Italian

Terracotta head from a statue

Terracotta head from a statue

ca. 525–500 BCE

[...] the flatly ironic turn of phrase, which wounds even more than insult.

1765-1769

Works of art have [...] more value when they are of a nature that can only be made by a small number of artisans, as they are then rarer.

1776

We consider the abstract ideas of the pure understanding only with disgust and without much application.

1674-1675

Men are driven from one ambition to another; they first seek to secure themselves from offense, and then to oppress their rivals.

1855

Georges Seurat

Circus Sideshow (Parade de cirque)

Circus Sideshow (Parade de cirque)

1887–88

[...] the people [...] have become accustomed to servitude; their soul has lost its energy; no strong passion sets it in motion.

1772

The quest for public office becomes the most pursued of all industries.

1835-1840

The insights of geometry, physics, and mechanics provided me with the design, and assured me that its use would be infallible if some craftsman could form the instrument whose model I had imagined.

1642-1645

It is only when we have understood how deeply [the artist] suffered [...] for an inaccessible ideal, that we begin to conceive who he was.

1896

Greek Artist, South Italian, Tarentine

Terracotta statuette base

Terracotta statuette base

3rd century BCE

In the language of scoundrels, no one has intelligence who does not value others at his own worth, that is to say, who also holds them to be scoundrels.

1764

The way that serves to establish [a tyrant], however harsh it may be, always does less harm to the public than a sovereignty contested by arms.

1643-1649

Copying is so tempting for the lazy; it is such a restful form of activity!

1926

[Humanity is a] virtue of profane morality, which it is necessary to stifle when one wants to be a good Christian; it almost never accords with the interests of the Divinity.

1768

Adriaen Isenbrant

Man Weighing Gold

Man Weighing Gold

ca. 1515–20

While repressive law tends to remain diffuse throughout society, restitutive law creates increasingly specialized organs.

1893

A voluntary agreement gives [...] political power, to rulers and Princes, for the benefit of their subjects, so that these subjects may possess their own property in safety.

1690

By induction, one passes from the particular to the general, and from the known to the unknown. Things of sensation are more known [...] at least for the common people.

End of the 4th century BC

The most common way to soften hearts [...] is to move them to pity through submission: However, bravery and constancy, complete opposites, have sometimes served the same purpose.

1580

Etruscan artist

Bronze floral element

Bronze floral element

ca. 550–500 BCE

The very pain that pity causes you to feel makes you worthy of pity.

c. 108 AD

That which passes through the air does not always affect it and often merely divides it.

c. 253-270 AD

We are free when our acts emanate from our whole personality, when they express it, when they have that indefinable resemblance to it which one sometimes finds between the artist and his work.

1889

While one has been obliged to explain their communication by a sort of miracle, one has always given reason to fear that the distinction between the body and the soul was not as real as is believed.

1696

Angelica Kauffmann

Edward Smith Stanley (1752–1834), Twelfth Earl of Derby, Elizabeth, Countess of Derby (Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, 1753–1797), and Their Son (Edward Smith Stanley, 1775–1851)

Edward Smith Stanley (1752–1834), Twelfth Earl of Derby, Elizabeth, Countess of Derby (Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, 1753–1797), and Their Son (Edward Smith Stanley, 1775–1851)

ca. 1776