When you're tired of listening to living idiots.
There is no surer guard for a leader than the firm and sincere affection of those under him; for when the people [...] have become accustomed not to fear the one who commands them, but to fear for him, then all ears, all eyes are open to watch over his safety.
100-120 AD
The square of Siena is the most beautiful to be seen in any city in Italy.
1774
Although a passion, for being secret, is no less a passion, [...] it matters greatly to know how to make a mystery of it.
1636
Is not wounded vanity the mother of all tragedies? But where pride is wounded, something better than it grows.
1883-1885
1510–15
When men wish to solve riddles [...], their haste and impatience cause them to miss the solution.
1609
The mind must judge all things according to its inner lights, without listening to the false and confused testimony of its senses and its imagination.
1674-1675
The entire body is equally liquid, and sometimes it becomes entirely hard and solidifies.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Oh, nothingness of human greatness! Oh, fragility of life! Are these the vain advantages for which, ever biased, we consume ourselves with toil?
1746
3900 BCE - 100 CE
What man has the right to demand happiness on an earth where almost everyone exhausts themselves merely reducing their miseries?
1926
He who possesses enough has obtained what no rich man has ever reached: the end of desire.
63-64 AD
It is therefore evident that there is nothing universal but names.
1772
For one who has done beautiful things, it is also beautiful to hear them spoken of.
c. 387 BC
1st century CE
Individuality encompasses the infinite, and only one who is capable of comprehending it can have knowledge of the principle of individuation.
1704
It would be vain to turn away from the past to think only of the future. [...] The opposition between the future and the past is absurd.
1943
It is generally admitted that it is just for a person to receive (good or evil) what they deserve, and unjust for them to receive the good or suffer the evil they do not deserve.
1861
[The] contracting parties would be between themselves under the sole law of nature and without any guarantee of their reciprocal commitments, which is in every way repugnant to the civil state.
1762
ca. 1632–35
Today, the issue is not the existence or non-existence of God, but the existence or non-existence of man; we must concern ourselves [...] with the equality of men among themselves [...].
1841
It is because you are a fool that you are silent, but you are not a fool for being silent.
86-82 BC
Knowing no one more capable of reassuring us, we have resolved to entrust this care to [the chosen person].
1498
The wicked are strong only against those who resemble them.
1765-1769
1512
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
In sum: the business of the senses is to perceive; that of the understanding, to think. Now, to think is to unite representations in a single consciousness.
1783
Universal Providence consists in the universe being in conformity with Intelligence, and Intelligence being anterior to the universe, [...] not in time, [...] but because Intelligence precedes by its nature the world which proceeds from it.
c. 253-270 AD
The bourgeoisie is bound to fear the stupidity of the masses so long as they remain conservative, and the intelligence of the masses as soon as they become revolutionary.
1851/1852
ca. 325–300 BCE
And to avoid all disputes, [it is ordered] that [the portion] once started will be paid for as if it were fully consumed.
1662
Freedom, restored to commerce [...], was a benefit that could not be enjoyed as soon as it was granted. A word from the monarch had been able to annihilate this freedom; a word did not bring it back.
1776
The love of glory and reputation is another spring of our machine, which gives much force to the moral sentiment; it is the passion of great souls.
1751
The Mind [...] assembles under a single point of view things that are very distant, and independent of one another.
1689
1879
Conceiving is a last resort in cases where one cannot perceive, and reasoning is only necessary insofar as one must fill the gaps in perception.
1911
A true image in itself still displeases me when it is not in its place, when nothing leads to it or prepares it.
1772
[Theologians] are people of bad faith, who abuse the credulity of the people to insinuate to them what they please, as if the common folk were absolutely unworthy of the truth [...].
17th century
Preoccupied with learning what they do not know [...], men unlearn what they know (the natural truths of common sense).
4th century BC
mid-15th century
Of all the sciences, morality is always the last to be perfected, always the least advanced, always the one on which opinions must be the most divided.
1797-1798
The brain, with its function of knowing, is basically just a lookout established by the will, to serve those of its ends which are located outside.
1819
It would seem we are applying the harshest regime to the least guilty, and reserving the mildest for the most criminal: which is [...] contrary to all principles of natural equity.
1864-1866
[To celebrate a] soul as universal as it is unique.
1718-1778
1824
The will is by its nature so free that it can never be constrained.
1649
When the soul is not corrupted, it does not need long speeches.
1263-1264
To limit ourselves to looking within would be to turn our gaze away from the very reality we must reach; it would make it impossible for us to understand anything of the movement that carries the world around us.
1922
That dishonest man has more than I! [...] It's because from the point of view of money, he is better than you; for he flatters, he is shameless, he works into the night.
c. 108 AD
ca. 550–500 BCE