If I perceive this loss of my faculties, and I become displeasing to myself, how could I still find pleasure in living?
4th century BC
Interesting subjects always fit well wherever one places them.
1580
What distinguishes the restitutive sanction is that it is not expiatory, but amounts to a simple restoration of the state of affairs.
1893
There is nothing false, nothing unworthy of being said and recommended in writing for times to come.
1574
Fragment of a limestone votive relief with a quadriga (?)
4th century BCE
The easier and faster a movement is, the less it is felt, so that it often ends up [...] being completely unnoticed.
1801
Place does not move, since it is the term of the immobile container, whereas the located thing moves.
c. 1270
The vanity of their erudition, leading them to judge before they understand, causes them to fall into gross errors of which other men are not capable.
1674-1675
No, the kisses of the most tender mistresses [...] are not worth a single glance from your eyes.
1718-1778
Marble statue head of a youth
1st or 2nd century CE
The concrete is concrete because it is the synthesis of many determinations, hence a unity of the diverse. It appears in thought, therefore, as a [...] result, not as a starting point, even though it is the real starting point.
1841
The mind thinks and arranges at little cost what costs the heart infinitely to implement.
1636
The author and the publisher are two players in a game: if the latter pays as he wishes, on the other hand he does not know what he is buying.
1741-1784
How could a river not find its way to the sea at last?
1883-1885
Head and neck from a marble figure
2700–2500 BCE
The principles of morality are everywhere the same, although the consequences that men draw from them are often very different.
1751
There is only good and bad fortune in this world; and it seems that every act of courage is a crime in adversity.
1782-1789
Why insist on staying at the table when, instead of the feast you were promised, there is only a vile and bland cuisine to make you sick?
1926
That is not economy, it is greed; for economy consists in carefully preserving what one possesses, but greed leads us to unjustly desire the property of others.
86-82 BC
Statuette of a woman
6th century BCE
[...] we determine hardness and softness in an absolute way in relation to touch; touch becomes for us a sort of mean measure [...].
c. 334 BC
To the importance of the enterprise is joined the difficulty, which is no less.
1623
Each one must bear the penalty for his own crime, and a man should not be made odious or suspect for the fault another has committed.
1686
It is better to die once than to fear death at every hour.
100-120 AD
Fragment of a terracotta plaque
7th century BCE
We are active and passive because we are in the one animal and we constitute parts of it.
c. 253-270 AD
[Science] has the advantage of teaching nothing that it does not demonstrate.
1642-1645
Motion is independent of observation, but [...] it is not independent of observability. There is no motion when there is no observable change.
1715-1716
The strength of the soul is not enough without the knowledge of truth.
1649
Flora and Zephyr
1743
To act freely is to regain possession of oneself, to place oneself back into pure duration.
1889
For the present case [...] has he given you nothing? Has he not given you patience? Has he not given you greatness of soul? Has he not given you courage?
c. 108 AD
Whoever holds to their freedom must renounce the comforts of the body. Whoever holds to their life must renounce dignities. Whoever holds to union with the Principle must renounce all attachment.
4th century BC
No one is forgetful of their own happiness.
c. 54 AD
Limestone head of a female votary
late 1st century BCE(?)
The 'power of the people over themselves' does not express the true state of the case; [...] self-government [...] is not the government of each by himself, but of each by all the rest.
1859
Merchants, enriched by trade and thrift, will likely appropriate little by little a portion of the lands.
1776
Life as it is made for humans is bearable only through lies. Those who refuse the lie [...] end up receiving from the outside [...] something that allows them to accept life as it is.
1962
The devils themselves [...] preferred to return to burn in hell than to live in this world under the orders of such a woman.
1518-1527
A Winter Landscape with Ice Skaters and an Imaginary Castle
ca. 1615–20
[Theurgy] employed by a pontiff in the coronation of kings contributes to making the leaders of nations more respectable in the eyes of the people, and imprints upon them an entirely divine character.
1766
All abstraction is but the suppression of certain manifest ideas [...]. One can therefore call abstraction a negative attention, that is, a real action opposed to that by which the representation becomes clear.
1763
The fire they put into business prevents them from becoming inflamed with ideas.
1835-1840
The essence of religion in general.
1841
Bronze cinerary urn with lid
ca. 500 BCE
Oh, nothingness of human greatness! Oh, fragility of life! Are these the vain advantages for which, ever biased, we consume ourselves with toil?
1746
If [fatal necessity] is once granted, all law, all virtue, all religion are cut off at their root.
1661-1676
The inequality of mind caused by the different constitution of men is [...] imperceptible.
1758
To be known is in contradiction with being in itself, and everything that is known is thereby a phenomenon.
1839
Bronze hydria (water jar)
early 4th century BCE