Could I be another? A stranger to myself? [...] A fighter who has too often had to overcome himself?
1886
General well-being favors the stability of all governments, but particularly of democratic government, which rests on the dispositions of the greatest number [...].
1835-1840
It is [...] impossible for the word love, for example, to awaken exactly the same idea in the mind of a child or an old man, of a passionate or timid woman...
1817
'The dignity of humanity is placed in your [artists'] hands, keep it intact! With you it falls! With you it will rise again!'
1896
A Peasant Woman Picking Fleas off a Dog
ca. 1626–27
Do you know the surest way to make your child miserable? It is to accustom him to getting everything.
1762
Philosophy fell either into abstract spiritualism or into abstract materialism, which is only an 'abstract spiritualism of matter'.
1841
There are in the nature of things two models, one divine and blessed, the other godless and wretched. Unjust men are unaware of this [...].
c. 253-270 AD
This so-called virtue [humility] is only fit to degrade man, to debase him in his own eyes, to stifle in him all energy and all desire to be useful to society.
1766
Sunset after a Storm on the Coast of Sicily
1853
And the happy thing is, this is my last journey.
1741-1784
In the one, they swear to prefer no one to Caesar; in this one, we swear to prefer ourselves to everyone.
c. 108 AD
The clearest and simplest principles are the most fruitful, and difficult [...] things are not always as useful as our vain curiosity leads us to believe.
1674-1675
Let the seditious, murderers, brigands be punished rigorously, [...] but let those whose doctrine is peaceful, and whose morals are chaste and innocent, be spared.
1686
Self-Portrait
ca. 1850
Does not the adage say: chiseling and polishing are not as good as letting nature act. [...] I let people do as they would, spontaneously, as nature operates.
4th century BC
No one can truly practice piety, nor obey God, except by submitting to all the decrees of the sovereign.
1670
A thing does not have a value because it costs, as is supposed; but it costs, because it has a value.
1776
Men must be either pampered or crushed, because they can get revenge for small injuries, but not for grievous ones.
1855
Bronze horse bit
8th–7th century BCE
To put one's glory in doing nothing is a cowardly ambition.
63-64 AD
Strange thing that, in all the arts, it is only after a long time that one finally arrives at the natural and the simple!
1732
Perhaps [...] it is out of benevolence that God grants me [...] the ability to end my life not only at the most suitable time, but also in the least painful way.
4th century BC
Whoever does not hate in himself this self-love, and this instinct which leads him to put himself above everything, is truly blind.
1670
Patera
mid 6th century BCE
The destruction of the past is perhaps the greatest of all crimes.
1943
Strength is what dominates in him. His verse is robust.
1926
The fate that actually befalls us rarely resembles the one we promised ourselves; at every step we take, we find our expectations disappointed.
1760
Divine love is not something of God: it is God himself.
1932
Christ among the Doctors
1668
I have deferred speaking of the lever until the end, because it is the most difficult machine [...] of all to explain.
1637
To have a great deal of common sense, one must be made in such a way that reason dominates feeling, and experience dominates reasoning.
1746
It is impossible to do great things when one's thoughts are entirely on petty things.
100-120 AD
A mind that occupies itself night and day with meditations attains that knowledge so recommended by the oracle of Delphi: self-knowledge.
45 BC
Top of a marble funerary relief with portrait busts of a young man and an elderly woman
ca. 138–141 CE
[Poets] would suffer more from the loss of their work than from that of their children.
1580
For a reduplicative proposition to be true, the [...] propositions that expose it [...] must be true, and if one of them were false, it would be false itself.
c. 1270
[Witty remarks and bold actions] have often been like wings to suddenly reach the summit of greatness.
1636
The number and importance of the prohibitions that isolate a sacred thing [...] correspond to the degree of sacredness with which it is invested.
1912
A Woman Ironing
1873
Regarding interrogation, it is especially opportune to use it when the adversary has said the contrary, so that [...] an absurdity results.
329-323 BC
A power acquired and maintained by force is a power that force has the right to repel.
1772
The man who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.
1859
To be fit for good company, one must have wit as well as politeness.
1751
Wall painting on red ground: candelabrum, from the imperial villa at Boscotrecase
last decade of the 1st century BCE
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
The distinction of subject and object [...] is the common form of all [representations], the only one under which any representation can be conceived.
1819
There are, in my view, efforts in all substances; but these efforts are properly only within the substance itself.
1695
an extraordinary man, who, charged with the most thorny affairs of a great Kingdom, cultivated the sciences and arts with more care [...] than even those who make this glorious occupation their principal business.
1627
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1560