It is impossible, once blood has been shed [...] that a peace imposed by force can last for long.
1513-1519
Generally speaking, the psychological state seems to us, in most cases, to extend far beyond the cerebral state.
1896
As for whether a character's speech or action is appropriate or not, one must not examine it in itself [...] but by also considering who is acting or speaking, to whom, when, and for what purpose.
c. 335 BC
From the humiliation into which the parliament was plunged [...], it suddenly rose to the highest degree of power [...].
1769
The Birth of the Virgin
ca. 1690
In inorganic life, action and reaction are equal: from the first degree of animal life, they diverge [...]. This judge, this dispenser of action, is the free soul.
1839
Those who have stolen a little are locked in prisons. Those who have stolen a lot are seated on thrones.
4th century BC
If we consult reason or revelation, we shall find that fathers and mothers have an equal right and power.
1690
The history of assemblies [...] constantly sees one party exaggerate its feelings to embarrass its opponent, and the latter feign feelings it does not have to avoid the trap.
1893
The Drinkers
by 1861
The more capital succeeds in prolonging the working day, the more it appropriates the labor of others.
1865
Even in the face of a superior force, the soul can remain invincible.
1st century AD
Victories won without the master's presence are not complete.
1580
For social control to be rigorous and for the common conscience to be maintained, society must be divided into compartments small enough to completely envelop the individual.
1893
Statuette of a boy
4th–3rd century BCE
All original intelligences are made this way; they are the expression, the flowering of a physiology.
1926
By substituting the word Priests for that of God, Theology becomes the simplest of sciences. [...] there are no true Atheists, since, unless one is an imbecile, one cannot deny the existence of the Clergy.
1768
We can only distinguish dreams from sensations because they are not linked with them; it is like a separate world.
1704
The word is also an image, an eminently abstract image; indeed, by pronouncing the name of a thing, one imagines one knows the thing itself.
1841
Spatula or curette
7000 BCE - 330 CE
What is useful to the public is hardly ever introduced except by force, given that private interests [...] are almost always opposed to it.
1762
One sometimes sees that those who listen as they should, though ignorant, are touched by the mere name of God.
1656-1657
As for me, when I look at a globe, I see something other than a flat circle: an experience on which it seems quite natural to me to rely.
1746
The best course is therefore to receive him and have him killed [...]. A dead man does not bite.
100-120 AD
Allée of Chestnut Trees
1878
There is a kind of contradiction between the two principles of human nature upon which religion is founded. Our natural terrors make us see a wicked deity [...]; our inclination to praise paints it as excellent and all-perfect.
1757
Perhaps [...] it is out of benevolence that the god grants me [...] to end my life not only at the most suitable time, but in the least painful way.
4th century BC
With regard to great faults, one does not suppress the knowledge of them; one only suspends it for a time.
1636
The mechanical arts [...] are like so many two-edged swords that serve sometimes to do evil, sometimes to remedy it.
1620
Limestone cippus of Olympos
ca. 2nd–3rd century CE
The case [...] remains the same, and nothing can change it; but the storm has passed, the hatred has subsided.
66 BC
I am tired of keeping my eyes downcast. If I want to die, my heart fails me.
1968
A bad example is the most pernicious doctrine [...] for the indiscreet populace, who thinks that whatever evil is done and suffered is permissible.
c. 1552-1553
Society [...] practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since [...] it penetrates much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaves the soul itself.
1859
The "Kearsarge" at Boulogne
1864
A government that would at the same time be legislative would rightly be called despotic [...].
1797
One may doubt whether justice itself admits of more or less, but one does not have this doubt about the just person, who is called [...] more just.
c. 1270
Is not honor worth more than wealth?
c. 108 AD
Only individuals exist in nature.
1801
Limestone relief of a youth, from a funerary building
ca. 300 BCE
[...] a soul that seeks divine felicity in the world of the senses is like Narcissus plunging into the abyss to embrace a shadow.
c. 253-270 AD
Knowledge kills action; for action, the mirage of illusion is necessary — this is what Hamlet teaches us.
1872
The multiplicity and diversity of sensory goods are the reason we recognize their vanity less, and are always in the hope of finding the true good we desire within them.
1674-1675
It happens much more often, when the affair one undertakes is very good, that it slips away while one defers its execution.
1643-1649
Bathsheba at Her Bath
ca. 1700
It is on education that the great difference observed between them depends.
1772
The sole defect, in a sense, of all works, is that they are too long.
1746
[Hostilities] without a declaration of war [are] perfidy.
1770
Liberty and the public good perish when a small number of men decide everything by their passion alone.
1677
Bronze handle of a hydria (water jar)
ca. 460–450 BCE