To tempt cupidity, it [the government] devised tontines.
1776
Superior knowledge [...] springs from his eyes and penetrates with his gaze; words could not express it.
4th century BC
Equality [...] delivers [each citizen] isolated and defenseless to the action of the greatest number.
1835-1840
All the inns established for the convenience of commerce are paid for by the government.
1759
Shist whetstone or polisher
ca. 1600–1050 BCE or earlier
To spare the citizens is [...] the virtue of the father of the fatherland.
circa 68 AD
What makes us inexcusable is that we are in the power of God like clay in the hands of the potter.
1661-1676
Whatever affection one may feel [...] for others, it is not and cannot be disinterested; [...] the most generous friendship [...] is only a modification of self-love.
1751
To be able to derive the general law of morality [...], one would have to know the function of morality, and for that, the only way is to observe moral facts.
1893
Stucco relief panel
2nd half of 1st century CE
the nation having for a maxim, that the King is a debtor only to those who multiply his subjects.
1627
The ultimate sanction of all morality (external motives apart) is a subjective feeling in our own minds.
1861
The question is whether, in certain cases, when it is reasonable to act, different possible ways of acting cannot be equally reasonable.
1715-1716
The primary cause of all error is, ultimately, the imperfection of our memories.
1805
Cloud Study (Distant Storm)
ca. 1786–1806
That Sovereignty is indivisible.
1762
The habit of success is so flattering that most people always aspire to new successes [...], like those with dropsy who cannot quench their thirst.
1636
The wise man [...] directs his attention above all to the great destiny that awaits him beyond the grave.
1760
Vice does not always exclude virtue in the same subject; above all, one must not easily believe that what is still lovable is vicious.
1746
Portrait of a Man
1741
...for the greater convenience and freedom of the bourgeois.
1662
The Lord's head represents the sublime height of his divinity, and his feet the humility of his incarnation; or again, the head is Jesus Christ himself, the feet are the poor who are his members.
1263-1264
Neither facts nor ideas are [...] constitutive of science: science, always provisional and [...] symbolic, is born from the collaboration of the idea and the fact.
1915
What one generation or era admired, the following generation or era never fails to despise it [...].
1926
Diana
ca. 1760
The spirit of evil and nature are one, and where nature is not tamed, the evil spirit is not tamed either.
1851
[He was] certainly the most shameless of vicious men, and the most perfect scorner of decency and honesty.
100-120 AD
Metaphysical consolation [...] the thought that life, at the bottom of things, despite the variability of appearances, remains imperturbably powerful and full of joy.
1872
The two powers that exercise the most absolute empire in a State, influence and eloquence, seem today to have united against us.
81 BC
Bronze handle
late 5th century BCE
[The second characteristic of freedom] is the ability left to each to live as he pleases; this [...] is the mark of liberty, as it is the mark of slavery not to have free will.
c. 350 BCE
I would rather die than slavishly beg for my life and be granted an existence far more dreadful than death.
4th century BC
When citizens and even magistrates tremble before one of their equals, [...] they are very close to rendering justice [...] according to his whims.
1513-1519
To get a clear idea of the elements of Natural Law and Politics, it is important to know the nature of Man.
1772
Two fulcra (headrest) attachments in the form of mule's heads
ca. late 3rd–1st century BCE
My hand is not my head [...]. It contains, so to speak, an infinity of nothings, the nothings of all that it is not.
1707
God exhausts himself [...] to reach the soul and seduce it. [...] And when it has become entirely his, he abandons it.
1947
Confusion is the transmutation of two or more bodily qualities, such that a new thing is born from it, different from those qualities.
c. 253-270 AD
They are domestic enemies, with whom being forced to converse, one is obliged to be constantly on guard, in order to prevent them from causing harm.
1643-1649
The Crucifixion
ca. 1325–30
This is the beginning of the first Olympian ode by Pindar.
c. 1552-1553
Idealism and materialism, as abstract and one-sided moments, share the same ground, although they are in direct opposition.
1841
What makes the tragedy of my current destiny is that my boldest undertakings must serve to make me a living.
1896
The continual work of your life is to build death. You are in death while you are in life.
1580
Francis I (1494–1547), King of France
1507
Morality is capable of Demonstration.
1689
You cannot take from man the inclinations of humanity [...] any more than you can get rid of your senses, however much you might want to.
c. 108 AD
Gravity [...] is but a secret of the body to hide the defects of the mind.
1758
Oh, what a foolish thing life is! [...] if eloquence and virtue still had any power over us.
1741-1784
The Garter
1724