The Senate [...] had condemned Caius Vatienus to perpetual prison and confiscated all his property, for having deliberately cut off his thumb [...] to exempt himself from this [military] journey.
1580
What is good? — All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself.
1888
The opposite virtue [to frivolity] is gravity or steadfastness; the attainment of the goal being its principal pleasure, it serves to direct and retain all other thoughts on the path that leads to it.
1772
Any pain is acceptable in clarity.
1942
Marble funerary statues of a maiden and a little girl
ca. 320 BCE
The major part of my opinions are expressed in only one place throughout my works.
1819
The public [...] does not persuade its beliefs, it imposes them and makes them penetrate souls by a sort of immense pressure of the mind of all on the intelligence of each.
1835-1840
The fires of dawn are not as sweet as the first glances of glory.
1746
Why count only intense feelings as happiness? They always cost too much and bring only sorrow.
1760
Bronze statuette of a bull
7th century BCE
How can we conceive of the strength [...] we would need to triumph over our most vivid passions, if virtue had to draw its weapons from the arsenal of metaphysics [...]?
1797-1798
We shall constantly slander one another [...] without being held back by any consideration.
16th century
Excess, dangerous in everything, is fatal in political rivalries: it drives to madness [...] those who [...] want virtue to be attached to glory, and not glory to virtue.
100-120 AD
I believe, and I think I must believe, that after the action of the soul there remain in its substance certain changes that actually dispose it to that same action.
1674-1675
Madonna and Child
ca. 1360–65
Low money wages may require a much larger quantity of currency for their circulation than high money wages [...].
1865
Socrates was the first to bring true philosophy down from the heavens [...] to make everyone discourse on what can serve to regulate life, to form morals, and to distinguish what is good from what is evil.
45 BC
We depend all the more closely on common opinion the more closely it watches all our actions.
1893
A contract of the people with such or such persons would be a particular act. From which it follows that this contract [...] would be illegitimate.
1762
Virgin and Child
ca. 1520
Books are but assemblies of words. Words convey ideas. But true ideas derive from a non-sensible principle, and can hardly be better expressed in words than it can.
4th century BC
Metaphysical evil consists in simple imperfection, physical evil in suffering, and moral evil in sin.
c. 253-270 AD
If I become aware of this loss of my faculties, and I displease myself, how could I still find pleasure in living?
4th century BC
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
Chalcedony amulet, thunderbolt
664–334 BCE
What makes us inexcusable is that we are in the power of God like clay in the hands of the potter.
1661-1676
In youth one goes astray, and in old age one obtains grace.
c. 1730
The future, originally, is what ought to be; it is what I do not have and what I desire or need...
1890
Its [moral] binding force consists in the existence of a mass of feeling which must be broken through in order to violate our standard of right, and which [...] manifests itself [...] in the form of remorse.
1861
Portrait of a Young Woman
ca. 1540–45
Definitions [...] are real when it is known that the defined is possible; otherwise they are only nominal, which should not be trusted.
1686
We think [...] of having fun, of becoming rich, of gaining a reputation, [...] without thinking about what it is to be a human being.
1670
The word Passover means passage [...] when we pass from the devil to Jesus Christ, and from this inconstant world into the kingdom whose foundations are unshakable.
1263-1264
The science of common things is the science of mediocre people; and sometimes the man of genius is, in this respect, grossly ignorant.
1758
The Organ Rehearsal
1885
April, the sweet hope of fruits [...] which nourish their young infancy.
1546/1563
Although [...] all men are equal, [...] age or virtue may give some superiority. [...] However, all this agrees very well with that equality in respect to the dominion of one over another.
1690
Sometimes be the object of ridicule, and then cast a calm gaze around you. You must be shaken up, so that you learn to know yourself.
c. 108 AD
The investigation of final causes is sterile, and, like a virgin consecrated to God, it bears no fruit.
1623
Group of 3 worked obsidian fragments and a raw obsidian lump
5th millennium or later
It is absolutely necessary to read what is written well, and to pronounce it well, which amounts to the same thing.
329-323 BC
[I wanted] to show the uncertainty of all our judgments on the characters of men, and [...] that customs, fashion, and laws are what primarily determine matters of morality.
1751
The more a memory is renewed, the more easily it awakens all collateral memories [...]. This is how the association of ideas is established.
1801
[...] by multiplying the pulleys, one can raise the greatest loads with the smallest forces.
1637
Still Life: A Banqueting Scene
ca. 1640–41
Reason thus finds itself degraded to the point of doing what is not its domain, and not doing what is; it no longer has a criterion in itself, it no longer distinguishes between true and false [...].
1841
[The man born blind] put his hand to it and was astonished not to find [...] those solid bodies [...]. He asked which was the deceiver, the sense of touch, or the sense of sight.
1746
How great is the soul that alone makes no demands, courts no one, and says: 'I have no business with you, O Fortune! I do not place myself at your mercy.'
63-64 AD
As often happens, one clearly separates the religious idea, religious art, and religious ceremonies from the detested idea of the clergy.
1926
Upper part of a limestone warrior from a chariot group
first half of the 6th century BCE