They are so afraid of letting an ambiguous term slip that they cannot pronounce their own name.
86-82 BC
One gains public esteem through some extraordinary and brilliant action [...] the outcome of which covers you with glory and honor.
1513-1519
He who [...] reserves for himself exceptions to a rule which by its very essence is susceptible to no exception [...] is already a liar (in potentia).
1797
One has thus oscillated from idealism to realism and from realism to idealism, but so rapidly that one has believed oneself to be motionless and, as it were, straddling the two systems combined into one.
1919
Christ Bearing the Cross
1489
A benefit is a social act that earns us an obliged person, a friend; giving to oneself has nothing social about it [...].
1st century AD
Some have spoken all their lives without saying anything... Some, who were silent their whole lives, have spoken a great deal.
4th century BC
A father sacrifices his daughter for ambition, and he must not be odious. What a problem to solve!
1759-1774
It takes but a word, a gesture from them [princes] [...] to make science [...] pass for low pedantry; recklessness [...] for greatness of courage; and impiety [...] for strength and freedom of mind.
1674-1675
Limestone strainer
3900 BCE - 100 CE
This egoism, of which we each have a treasure trove [...] reveals itself by our instinctive eagerness to seek, in every object offered to us, a means to lead us to our ends.
1840
The value of the form can only be the value of the labor that provides it. It is the wage due to the worker.
1776
The most natural act for living beings [...] is to produce another being like themselves [...] in order to partake of the eternal and the divine as much as they can.
384–322 BC
The most ridiculous and boldest hopes have often been the cause of extraordinary successes.
1746
Bronze bowl from a thymiaterion (incense burner)
late 4th century BCE
The attributes that one gives to the Divinity signify only our incapacity or the respect we have for him.
1772
Discipline is, so to speak, only the art of inspiring in soldiers more fear of their officers than of the enemy.
1758
The most courageous and natural attitude towards death is to see it coming not only without surprise, but also without preoccupation.
1580
Every man who acts wisely considers all the circumstances and connections of the resolution he makes, and does so according to the measure of his capacity.
1686
Standing female figurine
ca. 600–480 BCE
The garment of the church is a garment of many colors.
1623
You should swear an oath to God, as soldiers swear an oath to Caesar.
c. 108 AD
Time [...] exists with God throughout eternity; but one can only perceive and count it from the point where God created the movement that measures it.
1773
Every contract thus presupposes that, behind the parties who commit, there is society ready to intervene to enforce the commitments made.
1893
View of Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme
1896–98
The bosom of the inner man is the conscience of his heart. [...] When the conscience has drunk this divine liquor, it is purified and takes on a new life.
1263-1264
Upon the different forms of property, upon the social conditions of existence, rises an entire superstructure of distinct and peculiarly formed sentiments, illusions, modes of thought, and views of life.
1851/1852
If men fall into sin by the necessity of nature, they are therefore always excusable.
1661-1676
Of Essence and Quality.
c. 253-270 AD
Terracotta statuette of a deer
1st quarter of the 5th century BCE
Pascal renounced [...] including anything in a scientific study that would recall either the personality of the author or the personality of his predecessors.
1663
Civilized peoples often oppress and drive to despair barbarian peoples by their mere contact, without wishing to, and so to speak, without knowing it.
1847
I believe that the social relations between the two sexes, which subordinate one sex to the other in the name of the law, are wrong in themselves and now constitute one of the chief hindrances to human improvement.
1869
No dissension is so great or so dangerous as that which comes from religion: it separates citizens, neighbors, friends, relatives [...], it breaks alliances [...] and penetrates to the depths of hearts to [...] entrench irreconcilable hatreds.
c. 1552-1553
Marble head of a kouros (youth)
ca. 525–475 BCE
[One must have] a good diet, using only foods and drinks that refresh the blood, and which purge without any effort.
1643-1649
The marvelous in nature, the divine breath that stirs and penetrates it, is the law that is within it.
1842-1845
In men of mediocre capacity, the social virtues become [...] still more necessary, because nothing can compensate for the lack of these virtues, nor shield a man from our hatred.
1751
The city is what it is because our citizens are what they are.
c. 375 BC
Bronze jug
ca. 6th century BCE
My wild wisdom was conceived on the lonely mountains [...] upon your love, it would like to shelter what it holds most dear!
1883-1885
If one were to undertake to explain all our knowledge, and to prove it all, one would render it all problematic.
1805
To demand that men should constantly use words in the same sense [...] would be to imagine that all men should have the same notions, and speak only of things of which they have clear and distinct ideas.
1689
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
Still Life with Jar, Cup, and Apples
ca. 1877
What characterizes man is precisely this faculty of modifying, by repeating it infinitely, the hereditary gesture.
1926
Fortune took care that this enterprise should not be sullied by the blood of any citizen.
100-120 AD
Adversity tears the soul, but happiness corrupts it.
1754
[Some] naively believed that justice is of this world. That is the extremely dangerous illusion.
1934
Patera
mid 6th century BCE