Let us rather study the ancients, steep ourselves in their spirit, and try to do [...] what they themselves would do if they lived among us.
1911
[He] wants to conquer, not by surprise, but by sheer force of arms.
1580
Because everything in [them] works against nature, the good for which nature has given the predisposition is far from being extracted from the human being.
1777
The power of a federal government resides far less in the extent of the rights conferred upon it than in the faculty [...] it is allowed to exercise them by itself.
1864-1866
The Garter
1724
[The growth of the State is] a normal phenomenon, which is linked to the very structure of higher societies, since it progresses continuously as societies approach this type.
1893
This entire universe is empty of purpose. The soul which, because it is torn by misfortune, continually cries out for this purpose, touches this void.
1951
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race, posterity as well as the existing generation, those who dissent from the opinion even more than those who hold it.
1859
To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly.
1888
Gold rosette with the head of a griffin
ca. 630–620 BCE
Solitude is to the mind what diet is to the body: deadly when it is too long, although necessary.
1746
all men are almost always led to believe not by proof, but by what is pleasing. This way is base, unworthy, and foreign: thus everyone disavows it.
circa 1658
if the play has survived in the theater, it is because there is at least always movement, although this movement is false.
1758
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
Limestone statuette of a female votary
3900 BCE - 100 CE
We poets succeed better in fictions than in truths.
1733
But what does the sincerity of an attitude matter, if the attitude is beautiful?
1926
This is the beginning of the first Olympian ode by Pindar.
c. 1552-1553
[It was agreed...] that he would be exposed to all the inconveniences, and to all the evils to which men are subject.
1518-1527
Limestone strainer
3900 BCE - 100 CE
The policy of leaving the movement in the capital to itself for some time [...] turns out to be [...] one of the surest means of reorganizing the forces of reaction.
1851-1852
I am poor, but I have a just opinion of poverty; what does it matter to me then that I am pitied for my poverty!
c. 108 AD
[One must] make it so that the principal contentment depends only on oneself.
1643-1649
Few men long brave the hatred of the powerful out of pure love for humanity and truth.
1772
Man with a Celestial Globe
1624
When art [...] does [...] violence to nature [...], rarely are the efforts it makes to vanquish it [...] crowned with success, and it almost never achieves its principal goal.
1620
One feels how much a good deed honors the giver, when there is so much glory in receiving.
46 BC
They exclaim that it is blasphemous to impute an error to Scripture. What name, then, shall be given to them, who attribute to it all the chimeras of their imagination [...]?
1670
Do all souls form a single soul?
c. 253-270 AD
Limestone statuette of a temple boy
4th century BCE
Why then do you prefer chaining me to words over training me in deeds? Inspire in me more courage, more security; make me equal to Fortune, make me greater than her.
63-64 AD
The mystery of faith.
1841
The power [...] of parents is [...] a natural government; but it in no way extends to the rights, ends, and jurisdiction of [...] political power.
1690
The knowledge of all the opinions [...] of other men [...] is not so much a science as a history.
1674-1675
Head of a comic figurine
late 4th–3rd century BCE
As they spare no one, so no one spares them; and were they at the height of elevation, the last of men will believe himself entitled to strike at them.
1636
It would be much more accurate to identify the world with the devil.
1851
The general will is always right and always tends to the public utility.
1762
[The commissioners] would buy grain, and the more expensively they bought it, the more, consequently, was their profit.
1776
The Birth of Cupid
1550
Sophocles said that he himself represented men as they should be, and Euripides as they are.
c. 335 BC
Indeed, all that is evident, whether by natural reason or by supernatural revelation, is not called faith; [...] it is not said that we believe but that we know the things that are evident.
1772
[Interest] is a weak bond, which misfortune unties. Whereas nature is a strong bond, which withstands all trials. The same goes for self-interested friendship and transcendent friendship.
4th century BC
What motive would one have to extol an action, a character, if one agrees at the same time that these things are good for nothing?
1751
Bronze patera (salver)
ca. 550 BCE
We never see anything in this world but our own perceptions, and [...] all our knowledge consists only in the relationships we discover between them.
1805
I will not be sorry to sound out enlightened people on the thoughts I have just explained to you.
1696
One may doubt whether justice itself admits of more or less, but one does not have this doubt about the just person, who is called [...] more just.
c. 1270
Nothing good or beautiful can exist without measure.
c. 360 BC
Hoof, cow
7000 BCE - 330 CE