Notwithstanding this great vogue, the use [of the concept], three or four years after its establishment, was so despised that it was hardly used anymore [...].
1662
For morality there is no need of an end to act well, and the law alone, which contains the formal condition of the use of freedom in general, is sufficient.
1793
The passion of laughter is a sudden movement of vanity produced by a sudden conception of some personal advantage, compared to a weakness we notice [...] in others.
1772
Never will [certain people] agree to separate, in a great writer, literary genius from moral value, the value of submission to custom.
1926
Bronze knife with ram's-head handle
ca. 1st century CE
A great heart, far from being puffed up by the most astonishing successes, constantly sighs for more.
1636
Few people have a mind deep enough to reconcile so many truths, and to strip them of the errors with which they are mixed.
1746
In its rational aspect, the dialectic is a scandal [...] to the ruling classes... because it is essentially critical and revolutionary.
1841
He has a light mind and is still incapable of collecting himself, the man who is startled by the slightest cry.
63-64 AD
The Meeting of Alexander the Great and Diogenes
1605
I am poor, but I have a just opinion of poverty; what does it matter to me then that they pity me for my poverty!
c. 108 AD
It is therefore in the decomposition of the proposition into its elements that the separation between the brute and the intelligent species par excellence is marked.
1803
The life of the just man was the only happy one, while that of the unjust man was the most miserable of all.
100-120 AD
Once the soldier has known his strength, it is no longer possible to contain him.
1758
Fragmentary marble inscription
ca. 425–424 BCE
[...] everywhere, the rooster is master of his own dung heap.
1757-1758
The sea is judged to be calm when its surface is not stirred by the slightest wind; and likewise the soul is judged to be tranquil when no disturbance agitates it.
45 BC
'Through influence and connections' = 'through bribery and nepotism'.
1830-1831
The empire that Man has over this small World, I mean over his own Understanding, is the same as that which he exercises in this great World of visible Beings.
1689
Limestone statuette of a male votary
probably mid-6th century BCE
It is from this true and one world that the sensible world, which is not truly one, draws its existence: it is [...] multiple and divided into a plurality of parts that are separate from one another.
c. 253-270 AD
The continual contradictions in the world caused by pride [...] have forced the introduction of the rules of propriety or politeness, in order to facilitate the commerce of the mind and of conversation.
1751
[...] making oneself the sole cherished object of the Supreme Being is a much more powerful pride than that which aspires only to be cherished and admired by present and future men. Christian pride hides itself; it has the appearance of its opposite.
1841
The feeling of pain is more intense than the feeling of pleasure.
1674-1675
Terracotta statuette of a deer
1st quarter of the 5th century BCE
School cannot be the property of a party, and the teacher fails in their duties when they use the authority at their disposal to draw their students into the rut of their personal biases.
1922
Either you will have it as I conceive it, or it will remain to them as it is [...]. It is still too good for that rabble.
1741-1784
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
A married philosopher belongs in comedy, that is my thesis.
1887
Horse and rider
ca. 750–600 BCE
[...] praise the goodness of kings [...] and the submission of their subjects.
c. 1552-1553
This astonishing multitude of books should not be daunting. [...] one cannot live with all [people], and one chooses three or four friends. Thus one should no more complain of the multitude of books than of that of citizens.
1764
[An author]: his genius and his errors.
1855
Given a psychological fact, you doubtless determine the concomitant cerebral state. But the reverse is not true, and the same cerebral state could well correspond to very different psychological states.
1919
Bronze horse bit
8th–7th century BCE
The property of 'where' (ubi) is to be in every terminated body [...], because place is not due to the indivisible as such.
c. 1270
God alone has the advantage of having only intuitive knowledge. [...] [Higher beings] must also find difficulties in their path, without which they would not have the pleasure of making discoveries, which is one of the greatest.
1704
[Wealth] will always be increasing, and it will only have a limit in the final progress of agriculture.
1776
It is said that to philosophize is to doubt; all the more so is it to be in doubt to put forward, as I do, foolish and fanciful ideas.
1580
Lead figure of a woman
late 7th–early 6th century BCE
One does not realize the vitality of institutions that place right on the side of force; one does not know with what tenacity people cling to them.
1869
Why do plants not feel [...]? The cause is that they have neither [...] a principle capable of receiving the forms of sensible things, but are affected with the matter.
384–322 BC
To want to lead human beings [...] towards the good by merely indicating the direction, without ensuring the presence of corresponding motives, is like trying [...] to make a car with an empty tank go forward.
1943
Standing in his field of global knowledge, the Sage despises the knowledge of details, all convention, all affection, all art.
4th century BC
Bronze bull
late 5th–early 4th century BCE
What reason says is an evil is not an evil in relation to the order and laws of universal nature, but only in relation to the laws of our own nature alone.
1670
The enumeration in this constitution of certain rights shall not be interpreted in a manner that excludes or weakens other rights retained by the people.
1835-1840
All science seems to be placed on a steep mountain [...], it is regarded as something sublime and elevated.
1609
When it is a matter of the restitution of a State [...], those who have only equity on their side must never expect to obtain all their claims.
1643-1649
A Winter Landscape with Ice Skaters and an Imaginary Castle
ca. 1615–20