Intellectual inequality comes directly from God, and man cannot prevent it from always being found.
1835-1840
It is by the one and same virtue of charity that we love God and our neighbor, with this sole difference that we love God for God's sake, and we love our neighbor and ourselves for God's sake.
1263-1264
Will it [philosophy] be less rich for knowing what precisely constitutes its assured heritage? Will it be less strong for inheriting the strength of its ancestors?
c. 350 BC
My spirits, fed by this freedom [to write], regain new strength.
1574
Flora and Zephyr
1743
Hatred and envy depart with life, and it is especially among the dead that they cease.
c. 387 BC
As for the pain, I do not take it into account at all; for it is so short.
1643-1649
Thus a second self is formed which covers the first, a self whose existence has distinct moments, whose states are detached from one another and are easily expressed in words.
1889
[It can happen] that the coachmen refuse to stop to pick up [passengers] on the route, even though there are still empty seats...
1662
Filippo Archinto (born about 1500, died 1558), Archbishop of Milan
mid-1550s
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
He accustomed his soldiers to obey, without meddling in controlling or discussing their leader's plans.
1580
Men can be excusable and yet be deprived of blessedness and suffer in a thousand ways.
1661-1676
The mystical philosopher meditates on the reason for being of nature and man, but he does so in the imagination; he believes he is meditating [...] on another personal Being, different from man and nature.
1841
Bronze pendant in the form of a paired couple
8th century BCE
Consumption, which multiplies with needs, changes the use of land.
1776
Virtues derive from the soul's primitive foundation; vices are born from the soul's commerce with external things.
c. 253-270 AD
Human life can be compared to a race [...] where one has no other goal and no other reward than to outpace one's competitors.
1772
Love and jealousy are [...] the only remedies for boredom.
1772
The Smoker
ca. 1623–25
To question whether we shall remain faithful [to power] is already to be unfaithful to it.
100-120 AD
To attack orthodoxy [...] or to attack the intrigues of the clergy meant, under these conditions, to attack the Government itself.
1851-1852
[...] if the writer saw in it only a subject for edification, a poet could well see in it a formidable drama.
1926
It is great negligence or extreme malice to discourse on moral things in a vague and obscure manner.
1689
Wall painting: frieze supporting trellis, from the imperial villa at Boscotrecase
last decade of the 1st century BCE
Those who maintain that the universe does not need God to direct and govern it continually advance a doctrine that tends to banish Him from the world.
1715-1716
The sentiment of justice [...] is the natural feeling of vengeance, applied through intelligence and sympathy, to those evils that harm both us and society at the same time.
1861
Wherever I am well, there I find my homeland.
45 BC
In translating this dialogue, it seemed to us that we were truly witnessing their conversation; we hope that the reader will experience the same effect.
1773-1774
The Tears of Saint Peter
ca. 1612–13
What is beautiful and great but that which nature has made? What is deformed and weak but that which it has produced in its harshness?
1746
Drive from your heart [...] sadness, fear, covetousness, envy, malevolence, avarice, effeminacy, and intemperance.
c. 108 AD
We always measure duration by movement. A period of time is always manifested by a movement performed.
1817
You are going astray, this is the way to go.
1636
Head of a Child
1768
The parliament had become dear to the people for its opposition [...]; but they limited themselves to loving it, without [...] taking up arms to support that body against the court.
1769
Experience teaches me what exists and how it exists, but never that it must necessarily be so and not otherwise. It can therefore never make known the nature of things in themselves.
1783
It is always the astronomer who thinks he sees on the moon the mouse that is in his telescope.
1623
[The ambitious] use seemingly legitimate means [...]. These means, which have the appearance of virtue, easily deceive all eyes.
1513-1519
Head of a comic figurine
late 4th–3rd century BCE
Who has not had acquaintances, friends, or relatives who have voluntarily left this world? And should we think of these people with horror, as if they were criminals?
1851
The man is nothing, the work is everything.
1888
The knowledge of all the opinions and judgments of other men [...] is not so much a science as a history.
1674-1675
If someone wants to make himself invisible, there is no surer way than to become poor.
1942
The Mass of Saint Basil
1746
The precautions to be taken in observing facts, the way in which the main problems should be posed, the direction in which research should be guided [...] remained undetermined.
1895
After three years, I lost the sense of me and you.
4th century BC
Nothing binds hearts so much as the sweetness of weeping together.
1782-1789
To give the unfortunate only doubtful chances of salvation is to not want to save them.
1st Century AD
The Dispatch of the Messenger
1765