A man [...] cannot, by any compact, bind his children or his posterity. For a son, when he is of age, being as free as his father ever was, no act of the father can [...] take away the son's liberty.
1690
Ulysses is true wisdom, which, without being captivated by material charms [...], turns all its desires towards the heavens.
c. 253-270 AD
Where, in fact, in practice do you hold virtue to be equal and even superior to everything else! Show me a Stoic, if you have one.
c. 108 AD
[The existence of the Dutch] is precarious.
1770
Bronze pendant in the form of a paired couple
8th century BCE
What a monstrous vice is this which does not even deserve to be called cowardice, which finds no name vile enough, which nature disavows having made and the tongue refuses to name?
c. 1552-1553
Deduction, by itself, does not constitute a sufficient demonstration. Why should it be otherwise for the moralist?
1893
Human life [...] goes from suffering to boredom.
1819
The word 'person' implies a thinking, intelligent being, capable of reason and reflection, who can consider itself as the same [...] at different times and in different places.
1704
Mountainous Landscape at Vicovaro
ca. 1786–97
To destroy cities [...] or to exclude human beings from the city [...], is to cut every tie of poetry and love between human souls and the universe. [...] There is hardly a greater crime.
1942
O high noon of life! [...] Restless happiness, standing and listening; I await friends, ready night and day.
1886
Malice is a shade of fury and affectation is a beginning of frenzy.
1772
The seer knows the signs of what will come to pass, [...] but whether it is better for us that this should happen or not is for another to judge.
c. 380 BC
Man in a Turban
1632
It is man's weakness that makes him sociable; it is our common miseries that move our hearts to humanity.
1762
Ordinary harps make their sounds under any hand, but Aeolian harps only play when the storm strikes them.
1841
The desire to make the public more and more satisfied has necessitated great expense to have an equipage with which everyone will have reason to be content.
1662
There is no difference between letting one's passion be seen, and lending certain weapons for others to make themselves our master.
1636
Madonna and Child with Saints Jerome and Francis
1495
When men depart from the maxims of reason to embrace [...] an artificial life, no one can answer for what will please or displease them.
1751
Because everything in [them] works against nature, the good for which nature has given the predisposition is far from being extracted from the human being.
1777
It is only just that he should suffer in his turn what he made others suffer.
c. 54 AD
[...] men, in seeking to shield themselves from fear, immediately begin to make themselves feared.
1513-1519
Philip IV (1605–1665) in Parade Armor
ca. 1628
In the divine essence, there is absolutely nothing other than man; the secret of theology is anthropology.
1841
If patricians were to elect their colleagues [...], without passion and solely for the public interest, no government could be compared to an aristocratic one.
1677
Augustus confiscated the property of a Roman knight who had cut off the thumbs of two of his children [...] with the criminal aim of exempting them from joining the armies.
1580
It seems that by becoming scum, I was becoming an asset.
1926
Bronze statuette of a bull
early 5th century BCE
Just as there is nothing sweeter [...] than to entertain our reasons and approve of our opinions, there is also nothing so shocking as to see that they are not understood.
1674-1675
To effectively enlighten [democracy] on the imperfection of its laws, the first condition is not to hate it.
1835-1840
I praise and admire you; but I pity the fate of Greece, seeing that the only advantages that remained to us, knowledge and eloquence, will, through you, pass over to the Romans as well.
100-120 AD
The most ridiculous and boldest hopes have often been the cause of extraordinary successes.
1746
Madonna and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist
ca. 1497
Such is the consequence of presenting the same idea under one aspect or another, that [...] I firmly believed I had not learned it from Condillac.
1801
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
Every person maintains that equality is dictated by justice, unless they think that utility requires inequality.
1861
[...] duration, whose essence is to flow ceaselessly, and to exist, consequently, only for a consciousness and a memory.
1890
Pin
50 CE - 400 CE
I fear the medicines here all the more because everyone uses chemical extracts, whose effects are swift and dangerous.
1643-1649
Most often, revolutions in aristocracies happen without being noticed and through imperceptible destruction.
c. 350 BCE
All nations pray to God: the wise resign themselves and obey him.
1764
[The spirit of the Sage is] superior to heaven, to earth, to all beings, dwells in a body to which it is not attached, [...] and knows everything through global knowledge in its motionless unity.
4th century BC
Bronze axe head
ca. 2500–1900 BCE
[...] the legislator shapes heroes, geniuses, and virtuous people at will.
1758
One can say, with good intention but out of ignorance, something that is not advantageous.
1263-1264
Ever since people have been writing about luxury, some have praised it, others have satirized it, and nothing is proven. This is because no one seeks to understand each other.
1776
One is a bad citizen [...] when, by keeping the portrait of a seditious man [...], one wishes either to honor his memory [...] or to show a desire to imitate his crimes.
63 BC
Engraving
18th century