True patriotism is made of concentric layers, whose center [...] is the love of family; without the latter, only a sordid association of interests remains.
1896
One can both love virtue too much, and act excessively in a just action.
1580
The entire history of social progress consists in the series of transitions that lead a custom or institution to pass from the rank of a primary necessity [...] to that of a universally condemned injustice.
1861
Our ideas are subject to error only through the judgments that mix with them; and yet our judgments are in themselves as immune to error as all our other perceptions.
1805
Limestone statuette of a male votary
probably mid-6th century BCE
Although a happy quickness of mind is a gift of nature, art can nevertheless help and perfect it.
1636
In this case, a tacit suspicion does more harm than a thing explained at length.
86-82 BC
I know only one single way to overthrow a cult, and that is to make its ministers despicable through their vices and their poverty.
1773
All the movements we make without our will contributing to them [...] depend only on the conformation of our members [...] in the same way that the movement of a watch is produced by the sole force of its spring and the shape of its wheels.
1649
Matthew Baillie (1761–1823), F.R.S., after Hoppner
1817
Nothing is enough for greed; little is enough for nature.
41-43 AD
Direct slavery is the pivot of bourgeois industry [...]. Without slavery you have no cotton; without cotton you have no modern industry.
1847
One never receives praise for the virtues of the rational part of the soul; and thus, one does not praise someone directly for being wise, nor for being prudent.
4th century BC
After condensation, dissipation; after success, ruin. Strength invites attack, elevation attracts criticism, [...] nothing is stable or lasting.
4th century BC
View of the Campidoglio with the Statue of Marcus Aurelius
1762
The imagination may perhaps be excused if it sometimes raves [...]. But that the understanding, whose business it is to think, should instead rave, is something that can never be forgiven.
1783
If to have liberty it is necessary only to desire it, if only a simple act of will is needed, will there be any nation in the world that still deems it too expensive [...]?
c. 1552-1553
The services an envious person receives from people favored by Fortune are for them a cause of displeasure.
c. 72-126 AD
The idea of perfection sterilized French poetry for a century and a half [...].
1926
Bronze sphinx
late 6th century–early 5th century BCE
The fires of dawn are not as sweet as the first glances of glory.
1746
Thinking is an art that one learns like all the others, and with even more difficulty.
1762
The mere collector of facts is much like the cook who, instead of a good dish, serves us its ingredients.
1882
Descartes would have been the greatest philosopher on earth had he invented less.
1738
Saint Andrew
ca. 1326
The solidarity which derives from similarities is at its maximum when the collective conscience completely covers our whole conscience [...]; but at that moment our individuality is nil.
1893
That this horror or reluctance which all bodies have is not greater for admitting a large void than a small one.
1647
Civil history, which by its importance and authority, holds the first rank among human writings.
1623
The beginning is the most important part of the work.
c. 375 BC
Bronze bull
late 5th–early 4th century BCE
Christianity is a religion of free men; and they fear that by developing it in the souls of their slaves, some of the instincts of freedom might be awakened.
1864-1866
If there is a supreme intelligence [...] let us be assured that it takes pleasure in seeing us fulfill the purpose of our existence, by enjoying all the pleasures for which we were created.
1742
How can one apply this calculus to conjectural matters? I answer that it is as Messrs. Pascal, Huygens, and others have given demonstrations concerning chance (alea).
1686
Truth [...] means nothing other than the joining or separating of signs, according as the Things themselves agree or disagree with one another.
1689
The Dispatch of the Messenger
1765
The apostles agree on religion itself, but they are far from agreeing on its foundations.
1670
A man of talent [...] is equaled and sometimes even surpassed. A man of genius has an original character, he is inimitable.
1746
The created substance as such relates really to the creator, and this relation is immediately founded in it.
c. 1270
[Attempt at a] critique of Christianity.
1888
Copy after Rubens's "Wolf and Fox Hunt"
ca. 1824–26
It is a contemptible lightness and baseness of mind to believe blindly in the authority of men on subjects that depend on reason.
1674-1675
All goodness is, at its root, pity.
1819
To succeed [...], one must renew one's brilliant deeds.
1513-1519
An indiscreet burst of laughter can set an education back by six months.
1772
The Outer Harbor of Brest
1773
The question therefore arises of a new order, compatible with the newly acquired freedoms, with the renewed sense of workers' dignity and camaraderie.
1934-1942
A religion that was clear would soon be finished; our sacred interpreters would have nothing to tell us if God had spoken too clearly.
1768
His misfortune was when he lost his restraint, his honesty, [...] his respect for propriety.
c. 108 AD
Evil, being but a corruption of the good, could only act or work upon a good foundation; [...] only good things are capable of being corrupted.
c. 253-270 AD
The Two Central Figures in "Derby Day"
1860