Think rather that if life flees, if youth is but a flower that soon withers, we must all the more seize the moment when we possess it [...] & not lose any particle of such a fleeting existence.
1742
[Reason] is of all things in this world the most harmful to a reasonable being: God leaves reason only to those he wishes to damn, he removes it in his goodness from those he wishes to save.
1768
Since our thoughts are but consequences of the nature of our soul [...], it is useless to ask for the influence of another particular substance, besides the fact that this influence is absolutely inexplicable.
1686
What are desire and joy, if not a will that consents to what pleases us? And what are fear and sadness, if not a will that turns away from what displeases us?
c. 253-270 AD
Bead ornaments in the form of female head
6th–5th century BCE
An imperfect reason is far above an absence of reason.
1746
This disorder, which is perhaps only too personal an order...
1926
We hold from our nature a hatred for servitude and a love for liberty.
c. 387 BC
A bad example is the most pernicious doctrine [...] for the indiscreet populace, who thinks that whatever evil is done and suffered is permissible.
c. 1552-1553
Statuette of a warrior-10
7000 BCE - 30 BCE
We men, we are—more human [than the gods].
1886
The Lord wanted to teach us to bear with the wicked so as not to divide the body of Jesus Christ. [...] If you are good, tolerate the wicked to obtain the reward of the good, and not to share the punishment of the wicked.
1263-1264
Each individual, by agreeing with others to make one body politic [...], puts himself under an obligation to every one of that society to submit to the determination of the majority.
1690
You only conceal my madness in order to increase it.
Before January 1765
The Adoration of the Shepherds
probably after 1520
O [my rival], I envy your death, since you envied me the glory of giving you life!
100-120 AD
I would almost wager that she has not told a deliberate lie since she reached the age of reason.
1759-1774
...the most favorable [experiments] show nothing other than that Nature has a horror of the void, not that She cannot suffer it.
1647
There is no contradiction [...] in reducing the imagination to the human body, and in making it, for all that concerns the world, the sole instrument of knowledge.
17th century
Saint George
1472
The [good] will be [...] cheaper when merchants multiply with freedom, than when their number is reduced by regulations.
1776
Through his abdication, Charles V in turn rose above fortune.
1636
The love of power and the love of liberty are in an eternal antagonism. Where liberty is less, the passion for power is more ardent and more shameless.
1869
To recognize one's brother in a stranger, to recognize God in the universe.
1947
Madonna and Child
1307
You establish, it seems to me, a fatal necessity for all actions and all things.
1661-1676
Are new laws proposed [...]? All are in favor of the rich and the great, none in favor of the people.
1772
what decides everything is brute force.
1840
The Senate [...] had condemned Caius Vatienus to life imprisonment and the confiscation of all his property for having voluntarily cut off his thumb [...] in order to avoid taking part.
1580
The Cellier Altarpiece
1511–12
Man is extremely subject to error; the illusions of his senses, the visions of his imagination, and the abstractions of his mind deceive him at every moment.
1674-1675
Wherever I am well, there I find my homeland.
45 BC
Psychology (anthropology) will necessarily be the theology of the future.
1841
Fortunately, it is useless today to insist on such dreams, which have filled minds for so long.
1817
Cymbal
7000 BCE - 330 CE
All synthetic a priori principles are nothing more than principles of possible experience, and can never be related to things in themselves, but only to phenomena as objects of experience.
1783
The gods [...] often speak through the mouths of the simple, and not through those of men who might abuse their knowledge.
3rd or 4th century AD
Humans, in making the Gods in their own image, lend them their thoughts, their voice, and their face.
c. 350 B.C.E.
The moral fact proper does not consist in the act conforming to the rule, but in the rule itself. Now, there is no rule where there is no obligation.
1893
Two marble portrait heads from a relief
ca. 13 BCE–5 CE
His dissimulation [...] was singularly aided by the immobility of his features and the blankness of his gaze: for his eyes were dull and opaque, like those thick panes of glass [...] which let in light, but through which one sees nothing.
1893
In a homogeneous mass, [...] nothing could give birth to the idea of time; duration only begins with a certain variety of effects.
1890
Death and life, [...] success and failure, poverty and wealth [...] these are the alternating vicissitudes of which fate is made. One must disregard these things; do not let them penetrate the palace of the mind.
4th century BC
Nature strikes the understanding with a direct ray. Divinity [...] strikes it with a refracted ray. Lastly, man, shown and presented to himself, strikes it with a reflected ray.
1623
The Lamentation over the Dead Christ
1370–88
One always sees kings of Italy when the Germans are not there; and as soon as they set foot there, one sees them no more.
1753-1754
The desire to acquire is doubtless a common and natural thing; but to form the intention of doing so without the ability to carry it out is to incur blame and commit an error.
1513
Bring me whatever drachma you wish, and I will judge what it is worth.
c. 108 AD
Idealism and materialism, as abstract and one-sided moments, share the same ground, although they are in direct opposition.
1841
Portrait of a Young Man
1470s