When you're tired of listening to living idiots.
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
[Machiavelli is a] military writer and observer of the state of Europe, with regard to war, at the end of the Middle Ages.
1855
The duty of the people to bear the abuse of the supreme power [...] is founded on this, that their resistance to the sovereign legislation must never be considered otherwise than as illegal.
1797
Lacking [charisma], [a man's] great deeds and virtues became unbearable even to those who reaped their benefits: they could not stand his pride or his stubbornness.
100-120 AD
1790
he would love her if he would take the time.
circa 1748
The extremities of our inquiry all fall into bewilderment. [...] The end and the beginning of knowledge are held in similar foolishness.
1580
How do the plants bloom so uniquely, as if on an order from God, when he has told them to bloom?
c. 108 AD
[...] all the people there are so poor that no one studies or reasons, except to make a living.
1643-1649
2700–2300 BCE
One must affirm nothing concerning Scripture except what is given by Scripture itself, or what can be legitimately deduced from it.
1670
To boast is to close the way to fortune; if one already has merits and renown, it is to attract dispossession. To efface oneself, to hide in the crowd, that is security.
4th century BC
Properly speaking, magnificence exists only within the limits we have stated.
4th century BC
The most careless observer soon perceives that there is such a disposition as benevolence and generosity; that there are such sentiments as love, friendship, compassion, and gratitude.
1751
ca. 300 BCE
It is [...] the unjust use of violence that puts a man in a state of war with another; and thereby, the one who is guilty of it forfeits his right to life.
1690
Justice itself is in the truth of things; lying is always iniquity, error is always imposture.
1776-1778
It seems that all things in life having been said a thousand and a thousand times, nothing is left for the poet but to point at them while murmuring a few words to accompany his gesture.
1926
It is impossible to establish anything precise when one wants to set limits on the freedom of trade. Where, indeed, would one place these limits?
1776
2nd century CE
He who leads from good to evil is a bad seducer; he who brings back from evil to good is a good seducer.
1263-1264
The growth of productive forces thus leads to a strengthened domination of big capital, an increased stultification, and a greater simplification of the machine called the worker.
1849
...one may very often find opportunities to be lit for free, by following the [...] lantern-bearers when they are lighting other people.
1662
The fact that a rule is deviated from under special conditions does not prove that it does not exist.
1893
first half of the 6th century BCE
If quickness of mind alone should not command in chief, it can at least command in second.
1636
Today is the mistress of the young man, and tomorrow that of the old man.
1772
A somewhat lofty soul loves to struggle against an evil fate, [...] and the fight pleases it even without the victory.
1746
[In myths] [...] that which is by nature eternal is said to be begotten and born.
c. 253-270 AD
last decade of the 1st century BCE
The fatal tendency of the human race to set aside a thing as soon as it is no longer questioned has caused half of its errors.
1859
Nature has given us a mind eager for knowledge [...] it has created us as spectators of its sublime scenes.
c. 62-65
Some, too enamored of their own minds, audaciously invent facts.
1623
[Faith] is a holy confidence in Priests, which makes us believe everything they say, even without understanding any of it. Its effects are to plunge one into a holy stupefaction accompanied by a pious stubbornness.
1768
1467–74
They usually stop at the surface, at external ceremonies [...], they occupy themselves with them entirely. [...] Everything is essential to them, except what is truly essential.
1674-1675
'Sincere gratitude' = 'good payment'.
1830-1831
In Germany, democracy is a being of pure translation.
1896
...nothingness is surely preferable to something repugnant!
1876
ca. 1690
In times of revolution, people boast almost as much of the alleged crimes they want to commit as, in ordinary times, of the good intentions they claim to have.
1893
[Certain] ideas are so general that they muddle all branches of our knowledge as long as they remain vague.
1817
To know this with all one's soul and not to love them any less.
1947
I would rather die than slavishly beg for my life and be granted an existence far more dreadful than death.
4th century BC
6th century BCE
To deny that there is evil can be said with a laugh by a Lucullus who is well [...]; but let him put his head out the window, he will see unhappy people; let him have a fever, he will be one himself.
1764
The parts of time are as perfectly similar as those of space, and yet two instants are not the same instant.
1715-1716
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
There must be something in the cause of the comic that is slightly detrimental [...] to social life.
1900
probably 1861