The reality of an obligation is certain only if it manifests itself through some sanction.
1893
As if virtue [...] were not happiness itself and the highest freedom.
1661-1675
After eight years, I ceased to be preoccupied with life and death.
4th century BC
Our passions not only disguise their main object from us, but also all the things that have some relation to it.
1674-1675
Top of a marble funerary relief with portrait busts of a young man and an elderly woman
ca. 138–141 CE
One sees that the English founded their jury system not on capacity, but on land ownership, like all their other political institutions.
1835-1840
It is [April's] gentle hand that, from nature's bosom, releases a harvest of scents and flowers [...].
1546/1563
What gives character value [according to Kant] is to succeed, without sympathy, cold and indifferent, in doing good out of a disagreeable duty. A theory that revolts the true moral sense. An apotheosis of insensibility.
1840
[The Stoic doctrine] regarded greatness of soul as incompatible with fear and sorrow.
55-56 AD
Marble two-sided relief
1st century CE
Either he is well, or he is sick; but he is not sick, therefore he is well.
c. 1270
Our goal is to open to the understanding an entirely new path, one that the ancients neither explored nor even knew.
1620
The Inquisition is, as we know, an admirable and entirely Christian invention for making the pope and the monks more powerful, and for making a whole kingdom hypocritical.
1764
Intolerance and the spirit of persecution are of the essence of any sect that has Christianity as its basis.
1766
Element
7000 BCE - 330 CE
[Abstract words] only designate a vague relationship between things, and only present us with clear and real ideas the moment they are applied to a specific object.
1772
Self-love, the different opposing interests [...], the discussions that result from them in society, have obliged men to establish the laws of justice, in order to preserve the advantages of mutual assistance and protection.
1751
Why then do you deceive yourselves and play tricks on others? Why do you put on the clothes of another, [...] a name and a role that do not belong to you?
c. 108 AD
[Certain minds] persuade themselves that many things are possible which are not, for they possess only an imperfect theory of things in general.
1642-1645
The Crucifixion
1389
As for ideas, [...] I know of no other necessary precaution to take than to form them with care, [and] to examine often whether we are not altering them, and whether they are always the same under the same sign.
1817
Obstinacy and an overly ardent opinion are certain proofs of stupidity.
1580
[...] seeing that necessity was unavoidable, and that the situation, which compels obedience even from those who believe themselves masters, required this step, he took the risk.
100-120 AD
If you want to wage war on a prince to whom you are bound by treaties, you will use an attack on one of his friends as a pretext.
1513-1519
Standing tambourine player
ca. 600–480 BCE
Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth [...], and in no other way can a human being have the rational assurance of being right.
1859
What is presumption in the weak, is elevation in the strong.
1746
Philosophy is not a cosmo-theogony [...]. It is the science of silent spirits, of the principles and laws that direct nature and humanity.
1842-1845
It is much better to be entirely delivered from a false hope than to be uselessly sustained by it.
1643-1649
Arrowhead
ca. 480–330 BCE
It seems to me that this is saying the same thing in other words, as those who claim that my will is the occasional cause of the movement of my arm, and that God is the real cause of it.
1686
Each professional group creates for itself a morality by virtue of which the exercise of the profession [...] is beyond the reach of evil.
1934
The pretension of wanting to transform a novel into a historical document is senseless. [A novel] is more than history, and by reducing it [...] one diminishes it while trying to aggrandize it.
1760
The splendor of true glory, the majesty of a great soul [...] appear to be a gift of virtue; the rest is but a loan from fortune.
46 BC
Limestone statuette of a female votary
3900 BCE - 100 CE
It is unworthy of great hearts to spread the turmoil they feel.
1888
How are compounds formed from the first elements, if there is neither contact, nor touch, nor mixtion of any kind?
c. 253-270 AD
What did it serve him to have conquered an entire world, since he lost the privilege of great men, which is to know how to command oneself.
1636
While others buy the objects of their pleasures at great expense [...], I procure for myself, without spending anything, the pleasures of the soul, which are purer [...].
4th century BC
Bronze handle attachment with duck heads
1st century BCE
Chance is therefore mechanism behaving as if it had an intention.
1932
The injury is the same, the crime is equal, whether it is committed by a man wearing a crown, or by a man of naught.
1690
The pleasure which necessarily precedes the observation of a law [...] is pathological [...]; but that which is necessarily preceded by the law [...] belongs to the moral order.
1797-1798
He who, without stopping at appearances, judges the happiness of men only by the state of their hearts, will see their miseries even in their successes.
1762
Curettes ?
670 BCE - 330 CE
The experience of the past thus took away even the illusion of the future, and the people were as unhappy as they would have been if nature itself had condemned them to be so.
1768
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
There is in [man] a principle of resurrection, the immortality of the idea.
1870
All events that, by striking or threatening others, inspire in us a feeling of pity are subjects of fear.
329-323 BC
Monsieur de Bellefourière
1521