A [...] feeling of the inevitable necessity of dying incites men to aspire [...] to another kind of eternity, by immortalizing their name through actions [...] that leave a long memory.
1620
All those whose lives are in the hands of others think more of what the one on whom their fate depends can do, than what he ought to do.
81 BC
[If precious metals became common,] no more cities, consequently, no more great fortunes. But also no more begging [...].
1776
Carried by the ebb and flow of prejudices [...], reasonable or mad by chance, the slave of opinion is equally senseless in the eyes of the wise.
1758
The Agony in the Garden
ca. 1504
Our psychic states, by detaching themselves from one another, will solidify; [...] and little by little, our consciousness imitating the process by which nervous matter obtains reflex actions, automatism will cover over freedom.
1889
What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to everything he tries to get and succeeds in getting.
1762
[The spirit of the Sage is] superior to heaven, to earth, to all beings, dwells in a body to which it is not attached, [...] and knows everything through global knowledge in its motionless unity.
4th century BC
...it is as ridiculous to praise oneself as to blame oneself.
100-120 AD
Saint Nicholas of Bari
mid-1430s
There can be a measure in crime, but never in vengeance.
c. 62 AD
It is no less true that [the body's] parts are only mechanically united among themselves, and thus it is not a single corporeal substance, but an aggregate of several corporeal substances.
1686
[Objection:] That this proposition, that a space is empty, is repugnant to common sense.
1647
[There is] a certain languor which sometimes prevents us from carrying out things that have been approved by our judgment.
1643-1649
Portrait of a Man, possibly Matteo di Sebastiano di Bernardino Gozzadini
1494(?)
In all sciences, certainty is equally complete when the reasoning is sound; but it is more difficult to make this reasoning sound in some than in others.
1817
[The Beast] is depicted as a sort of white bear dotted with black spots. This naivety is much more intelligent than the imagination of modern illustrators.
1926
Let us only win peace and not worry that it be poor: if we have war, nothing is enough; if we have peace, nothing will be lacking.
c. 1552-1553
This feeling, when disinterested, and connecting itself with the pure idea of duty [...] forms the essence of Conscience.
1861
Study of a Nude Man
early 1840s
My happiness is foolish and it will speak only follies: it is still too young — so be patient with it!
1883-1885
What is not good is to abandon the Creator to live according to the created good, whether one wants to live according to the flesh, or according to the soul, or according to the whole man.
c. 253-270 AD
these two sciences [arithmetic and algebra] are the foundation of all the others, and provide the true means of acquiring all the exact sciences.
1674-1675
If one criticizes the lack of truth, the answer is that the intent was to render objects as they should be.
c. 335 BC
Boatman among the Reeds
ca. 1865
One can draw [...] from our man's stupidity an advantage: it is that one must not lose all hope.
1518
By tormenting myself [...], I may well arrive at pain; but, as for pleasure, however much I strive for it, I will never give it to myself, in spite of nature.
1742
We call Good, all that is apt to produce Pleasure, and [...] Evil, what is apt to produce in us Pain.
1689
The habit of feeding on what they had killed easily led them to treat their enemies like their deer and their wild boars.
1764
Marble torso of a seated man
1st or 2nd century CE
Can religion and faith not be defended, unless men take care to ignore everything and to abdicate reason?
1670
Clarity is the good faith of philosophers.
1746
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
'Our sympathies go to the vanquished hero, not the victorious one'.
1896
Mother and Child by the Sea
1830
[The middle class] lacks homogeneity [...] which makes its government weak, but makes it itself elusive and as if invisible to those who wish to strike it when it no longer governs.
1893
To assist, in the sense in which this word is used here, is to be in relation.
c. 1270
What could compel you to believe what you do not want to believe? [...] And what danger is there for you in the errors of others?
c. 108 AD
The supreme legislation of nature must be found in ourselves, that is, in our understanding.
1783
The Turkish Patrol
ca. 1855–56
[Ignorance] is the opposite of science, & the first disposition to faith. One feels its full importance for the Church.
1768
Gifts and loans, that is the financial science of the lumpenproletariat, high and low.
1851/1852
If I do not love them as they are, it is not them that I love, and my love is not true.
1942
If making a person is currently the goal of education, and if to educate is to socialize, let us then conclude that it is possible to individualize by socializing.
1922
Bronze pendant in the form of a paired couple
8th century BCE
The will as thing-in-itself exists outside the principium individuationis (Time and Space) [...]. The limits that arise from the action of this principle do not, therefore, exist for the will.
1836
We hold from our nature a hatred for servitude and a love for liberty.
c. 387 BC
My trade and my art is to live.
1580
Where is reason? In statesmen? [...] those who believe they know everything are hardly tempted to learn.
1741-1784
George Moore (1852–1933)
1879