All that is new is good, and all that is unknown is new, all that is distant is new. The more a literary work differs from present literary trends, the greater its nutritional value will be.
1926
Would not the error of empiricism be [...] to over-intellectualize the general belief in the law of causality, to consider it in its relation to science, and not in its relation to life?
1900
All visible and palpable force is subject to an invisible limit that it will never cross.
1943
Since nothing is stable in us, a health too flourishing [...] is to be contained and weakened with art, for fear [...] that it results in too sudden a backward movement which causes disorders.
1580
The Night-Hag Visiting Lapland Witches
1796
The Christian religion obliges us to live only for God, and to have no other object than Him.
1670
Does not the whole economy of the Gospel rest on the fact that the only Son of God [...] showed himself clothed in human nature, and by his passion and his death paid the ransom for our sins [...]?
1661-1676
Fortune's arms are not as long as we think: she only seizes those who cling to her.
63-64 AD
To attack orthodoxy [...] or to attack the intrigues of the clergy meant, under these conditions, to attack the Government itself.
1851-1852
Limestone male figure in Egyptian dress
mid-6th century BCE
There is nothing entirely in our power except our thoughts.
1637
Chrysippus taught that mixtion is broader than temperation.
c. 253-270 AD
The amount of noise a person can bear without being disturbed is in inverse proportion to their intelligence, and can therefore give an approximate measure of it.
1819
Nor should one say something that can be taken in a sense other than the one intended.
86-82 BC
Limestone statue of a veiled female votary
1st century BCE
First, that nothing exists; second, that if something exists, it is inaccessible to man; finally, that even if it were accessible, one can neither express it nor make it understood to others.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Thus judgment is the distinctive characteristic of what is called common sense, and the lack of common sense a defect that no school can repair.
1781
He who wants to learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance: one cannot learn to fly straight away!
1883-1885
I know of only two ways to make equality reign in the political world: to give rights to every citizen, or to give them to no one.
1835-1840
Terracotta plaque
27 BCE–68 CE
A man who has never left his country usually imagines that the morals and customs of foreigners are contrary to reason because they are contrary to the custom of his own city [...].
1674-1675
...it is as ridiculous to praise oneself as to blame oneself.
100-120 AD
If you ask me what is best in the world, what shall I name? [...] Our faculty of judgment and will, when it is on the right path.
c. 108 AD
Where is the man who is not perfectly content with his way of life, and who would not believe himself unhappy to change it for that of his neighbor?
1742
Portrait of a Man, Possibly Ottavio Farnese (1524–1586), Duke of Parma and Piacenza
1563
When men receive some good from one of whom they expected only evil, they are much more grateful.
1855
In any country where virtue is odious to the powerful, it is equally useless and foolish to claim to form honest citizens.
1772
An outburst, escaped in certain moments, can put the hero on the same level as the common man; it can even put the latter above the former.
1636
It is therefore the people themselves who allow themselves to be, or rather cause themselves to be, dominated, since by ceasing to serve they would be free; it is the people who enslave themselves, who cut their own throats.
c. 1552-1553
The Afternoon Meal (La Merienda)
ca. 1772
Every society is a moral society.
1893
A revelation that were true [...] should be clear enough to be understood by all of humankind.
1766
If all this does not come to a good end [...], the philosopher will be at his wit's end.
1741-1784
I am sure that I feel, and my existence consists in feeling.
1817
Peasants Dancing
1651
This Faculty of perceiving is, it seems to me, what distinguishes Animals from Beings of a lower species.
1689
So there is a shortage: it is not that the wheat is lacking, but it has been withdrawn from consumption.
1776
What was at first a mere brute fact becomes a legal right, guaranteed by society, supported and protected by social forces [...].
1869
There is no useless substance; they all contribute to the design of God.
1695
Limestone statuette of a temple girl
3rd century BCE–1st century CE
Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.
c. 375 BC
Men, be humane, it is your first duty [...]. What wisdom is there for you outside of humanity? Love childhood; favor its games, its pleasures, its lovable instinct.
1762
Nothing characterizes a bad reign like flattery carried to excess [...].
1746
Amidst confused cries, arguments, and noise, [...] weeping, Truth flees.
1723-1728
Madonna and Child with Two Angels
1464
Springs gush forth naturally. The superior man is so spontaneously. The sky is high, the earth is thick, the sun and moon are bright, all this without a formula.
4th century BC
The probable is that which is regarded as such by all men, or by a great number, or by the wise [...].
c. 1270
One finds [...] the fundamental, insurmountable antagonism between the mindset of the artist and that of the politician.
1896
Those who, from the moment they see nothing but the sky and the sea, imagine that there is no more land beyond their horizon, [are] very cowardly navigators.
1623
Bronze dagger
ca. 1750–1450 BCE