Clarity adorns profound thoughts.
1747
When men aggrandize the idea of their divinity, this exaltation, most often, only bears upon power and intelligence; goodness is forgotten [...].
1757
They [The peasants] cannot represent themselves, they must be represented. Their representative must appear [...] as their master, as an authority, as an unlimited power [...].
1851/1852
It is therefore most evident that he [Jesus] was accused of a crime of state.
1763
Limestone statuette of a temple girl
3rd century BCE–1st century CE
If we abstract from our subject [...], all the properties, all the relations of objects in space and time, space and time themselves, vanish.
1781
Will you not practice being content with what has been given to you?
c. 108 AD
...and to this end [it is ordered] that the [...] lantern-bearers shall have an hourglass, for exactly a quarter of an hour, marked with the city's coat of arms, which they will carry on their belts.
1662
Time has, in each century, presented some truths to men; but it still has many gifts left to give us.
1758
Bead ornaments in the form of female head
6th–5th century BCE
Never in this universe is there an equality of dimension between an obligation and its object. The obligation is an infinite, the object is not.
1943
I know that we must suffer [...] the wrongs of our parents. But I also think that one must suffer what can be suffered, and hide what can be hidden.
66 BC
If my soul could find a foothold, I would not hesitate [...] but it is forever seeking its way and putting itself to the test.
1580
[Religious forces] invade every object within their reach, whatever it may be.
1912
Chlorite pestle
ca. 1600–1050 BCE
If I can [...] by resorting to paper, make some honest man speak what I feel, my spirits, fed by this freedom, immediately regain new strength.
1574
It is true that the debts were extinguished: but the taxes remained; and they were accumulated [...].
1776
Reverie seems to be nothing other than following certain thoughts for the pleasure one takes in them, without any other purpose, which is why it can lead to madness.
1704
My friend, I believe that Love is a savage and cruel master.
1741-1784
Standing female figurine
ca. 600–480 BCE
If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.
1859
Superior knowledge [...] springs from his eyes and penetrates with his gaze; words could not express it.
4th century BC
God, in His knowledge of the future, predicted the disbelief [...] without being its author; for God forces no man to sin, simply because He foresees the sins men will commit.
1263-1264
All men die equally [...]; but posterity distinguishes them by glory or oblivion.
1754
Bolt
7000 BCE - 330 CE
[Certain ideas] are such that [...] I am forced to say that they are and would always be the same, even if neither I, nor any man, had ever thought of them.
c. 1660
The wise man [...] never goes out without saying to himself: 'I will meet many who are ungrateful, greedy, restless souls.' He will see all this with as kind an eye as a doctor sees his patients.
c. 41 AD
The immediate cause of the inability to learn is prejudice, and the cause of prejudice is a false opinion of our own knowledge.
1772
Imagining that, to penetrate the secrets of nature, it was enough to meditate with obstinacy, to turn one's mind, so to speak, in every direction, and to keep it in perpetual agitation.
1620
A Winter Landscape with Ice Skaters and an Imaginary Castle
ca. 1615–20
Our Ignorance infinitely surpasses our Knowledge.
1689
If the maxims are honest, they give the speaker's character an honest appearance as well.
329-323 BC
But there is only one way, one path to learn to know, and that is to love.
1896
Our perceptions being fleeting and transitory, their succession in our mind provides no means of dividing their duration [...] into distinct portions, separated in a fixed and precise manner.
1817
Bronze patera (shallow bowl with handle)
late 4th–early 3rd century BCE
[Evil] consists in privation, that is, in what the efficient cause does not do. This is why the Scholastics used to call the cause of evil deficient.
c. 253-270 AD
To find a way to make amusing things more amusing and unpleasant things less unpleasant.
16th century
The principal effect of all the passions in men is that they incite and dispose their soul to want the things for which they prepare their body.
1649
The diversion is a particularly shameless stratagem when it consists of completely abandoning the subject to raise a personal objection.
1830-1831
The Fair at Bezons
ca. 1733
What can be expected of a man who has spent twenty years of his life making pinheads?
1835-1840
Beauty is a promise of happiness.
1887
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 strength of States rests almost entirely on a set of social traditions that cannot be touched without causing the ruin of the edifice.
1926
The Pérussis Altarpiece
1480
[Thought] is a dialogue that the soul holds with itself about the objects it examines.
c. 360 BC
One must always begin with the simplest and easiest things, and dwell on them for a long time before undertaking the search for more complex ones.
1674-1675
In such matters, there is as much peril in believing everything as in believing nothing [...]. Reserve and moderation are the wisest course.
100-120 AD
Scientific research, as recommended by Claude Bernard, is a dialogue between man and nature.
1915
Self-Portrait
1795