One has certainly heard it said that the property is in the subject; but one has never heard it said that the subject is in its property.
1715-1716
The revolutionary threats of the petty bourgeois [...] are merely attempts to intimidate the antagonist. [...] When they have sufficiently compromised themselves [...], they avoid nothing so much as the means to the end, and look for excuses for defeat.
1851/1852
Poets have created these fictions only to present to us, in foreign characters, a portrait of our customs and an image of ordinary life.
79 BC
Only a few perfect beings are dead and naked here below, while still alive.
1942
Stucco relief panel
2nd half of 1st century CE
If the passions have no other causes than those we have indicated, we need only make good use of our understanding [...] to be sure not to be led astray by them.
c. 1660
The day of glory almost never shines except upon the tomb of great men.
1772
Little by little, the people grow accustomed to irreverence towards the magistrate, [...] learn to disobey willingly, and let themselves be led by the bait of liberty, or rather license, which is the sweetest and most tantalizing poison in the world.
c. 1552-1553
A being, fundamentally, is that which represents itself, and which is represented by itself, but whose existence in itself is neither in the act of representation nor in the quality of a represented object.
1819
The Turkish Patrol
ca. 1855–56
I believe that the return of industrial crises is an endemic disease in democratic nations [...]. It can be made less dangerous, but not cured.
1835-1840
These mercenaries [the priests] would soon dominate the household and oppress both mother and child.
1733
For the legislator [...] to establish a government is neither the only nor the greatest difficulty; it is rather to know how to make it last.
c. 350 BCE
One does not realize the vitality of institutions that place right on the side of force; one does not know with what tenacity people cling to them.
1869
Arrowhead
ca. 480–330 BCE
Our actions are neither as good nor as vicious as our intentions.
1747
Light is entirely incorporeal, although it is the act of a body.
c. 253-270 AD
In a word, let us distinguish between an art of cultivating sciences and an art of inventing them.
1620
When spirits have begun to cool, it will be found that the damage has already been done and suffered, and that there is no longer any remedy.
1513
Dagger blade
7000 BCE - 330 CE
The land of chimeras is in this world the only one worth living in, and [...] there is nothing beautiful except that which is not.
1761
To believe that the existence of the world is explained by a creator is a psychological illusion.
1841
For an idea to be unique, it is sufficient that it be considered as a single image, although it may be composed of the greatest number of particular Ideas.
1689
The perfect woman is a higher type of humanity than the perfect man: she is also something rarer.
1926
Two Women Embracing
1913
Why be surprised [...] if the divinity judges it more advantageous for me to leave this life at this very moment?
4th century BC
I couldn't teach it to my son, and at seventy years old, to have a good wheel, I still have to make it myself.
4th century BC
I equally blame [...] those who choose to praise man, [...] to blame him, and [...] to amuse themselves; and I can only approve of those who seek in sorrow.
1670
[Doctrine] is what every good Christian must believe, on pain of being burned [...]. The dogmas of Religion are immutable decrees of God who can only change his mind when the Church changes hers.
1768
Bronze statuette of a comic actor
ca. 1st–2nd century CE
[A ruler] knows that if he punished all who insult him, he would have no one left to rule.
c. 108 AD
It is [...] such a praiseworthy virtue to judge others favorably.
1643-1649
Style, in its origin, was poetic; since it began by painting ideas with the most perceivable images, and was moreover extremely measured.
1746
He who governs in a gentle and popular manner is less blameworthy than those who treat the people with contemptuous pride, so as not to seem to flatter them.
100-120 AD
James Stuart (1612–1655), Duke of Richmond and Lennox
ca. 1633–35
So vain and frivolous a thing is human prudence! And through all our projects, our counsels, and precautions, fortune always maintains possession of events.
1580
The universe is vaster than our mind; life is short, education is long, truth is infinite.
1882
The only way to rejuvenate collective representations [...] is to re-immerse them in the very source of religious life, that is to say, in assembled groups.
1912
To express a judgment, one must state the two ideas, one of which contains the other, plus the act of the mind that perceives this relationship. [...] This is what constitutes a proposition.
1803
Statuette of Herakles
3rd century BCE–2nd century CE
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
There is nothing, it seems to me, more unhappy than a man who has never experienced misfortune.
c. 64 AD
Luxury may be harmful in Switzerland. It would ruin a man, whereas it only encourages industry [...] among the French or the English; one should not therefore expect to find the same laws established in Bern, London, and Paris.
1751
Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood.
1886
Portrait of a Dwarf
1525
[The frontispiece depicts] Truth removing her mask from Superstition [...] holding her broken scepter in one hand, while her crown rolls on the ground.
1746
Each particular experience is only a part of the whole of its domain; but the absolute whole of all possible experience is no longer an experience.
1783
The division of being into ten predicaments is a division into ten really different things.
c. 1270
desire for a mere trifle, or for something manifestly harmful [...], ceaselessly justifies itself against reason, since so many passions work towards its justification.
1674-1675
The Villa Loredan, Paese
early 1780s