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Dead Smart People

When you're tired of listening to living idiots.

Français

I desire neither reputation nor fortune, because these things do not bring happiness.

4th century BC

[The author] lets his pen wander at the whim of his imagination.

1762

Poles, Czechs and Germans.

1848

Nothing prevents a thing which does not have in its nature the reason for another thing, from nevertheless being able to have it from another cause.

1270

Cypriot artist

Upper part of a female limestone votary

Upper part of a female limestone votary

2nd or 3rd quarter of the 6th century BCE

Chance is but a word, and the need they have of it to build their systems proves how necessary it is to recognize a first principle.

1755

If morality is one way or another at a given moment, it is because the conditions in which people then live do not allow it to be otherwise.

1893

Irresolution seems to me the most common and apparent vice of our nature.

1580

What does not kill me makes me stronger.

1888

Cycladic

Marble female figure

Marble female figure

3200–2700 BCE

if you impose [your beliefs] on those who do not find them conformable [...], you yourself are a heretic, if for dogmas that cannot be fundamental, you cause a separation.

1686

Consent to tell yourself the truth: you have done nothing to be it, and they have done everything.

c. 108 AD

The role of our body is to screen from consciousness everything that would be of no practical interest to us, everything that does not lend itself to our action.

1919

The necessity of lighting the streets for a longer period of time was soon felt.

1662

Roman Artist

Marble cornice fragment

Marble cornice fragment

2nd century CE

Empirical judgments, if they have objective validity, are judgments of experience; but those that have only subjective validity are mere judgments of perception.

1783

There are no customs, however innocent and reasonable they may be, that cannot be made odious or ridiculous, when judged by a model unknown to their authors.

1751

[These distinctions are] so many new facts of which I am just as certain as of the first general fact, I feel; and I am certain of them in the same way; that is, because I feel them.

1817

All very ancient events are uncertain, and it is not without danger that one writes the history of more modern times.

1623

Greek Artist, Laconian

Lead figure, possibly of a skeleton

Lead figure, possibly of a skeleton

possibly 4th century BCE

The source of inspiration remains forever hidden from us [...]. Logic loses its rights, and if a necessity drives genius to produce, the law of that necessity remains within itself.

1896

Truth is nothing other than a real relation, either of equality or of inequality.

1674-1675

Our soul will have cause to rejoice when, freed from the darkness in which it struggles, it can [...] be wholly filled with the great light.

63-64 AD

Everyone shall be bound to envy the happiness of others, and consequently to cause them all the annoyances within his power.

16th century

Greek Artist, Laconian

Statuette of a runner

Statuette of a runner

7000 BCE - 30 BCE

Since many people are dominated by the lure of profit [...], it is a cause for fear to be at the mercy of another.

329-323 BC

What [...] color, race, religion, or nationality [...] are for some men, sex is for all women; it is a radical exclusion from almost all honorable occupations.

1869

If quickness of mind alone should not command in chief, it can at least command in second.

1636

In these kinds of societies, the imagination of the poor is cast towards the other world; the miseries of real life constrain it, but it escapes them and seeks its pleasures elsewhere.

1835-1840

Cosmè Tura (Cosimo di Domenico di Bonaventura)

The Flight into Egypt

The Flight into Egypt

1470s

There is a difference between apposition, mixtion, temperation, and confusion.

c. 253-270 AD

Such excuses, if they were admitted, would leave the greatest crimes unpunished.

86-82 BC

It is much better to be entirely delivered from a false hope than to be uselessly sustained by it.

1643-1649

[Hope] makes them lose sight of present happiness; it renders them useless to society; it makes them believe [...] that God will reward in heaven their uselessness, their dark moods, [...] their idleness.

1766

French Painter

Portrait of a Woman

Portrait of a Woman

1790

This circumspection [in not changing government] is a maxim of policy and not a rule of law.

1762

Justice [...] means minding one's own business and not meddling with other men's concerns.

c. 375 BC

Let us only win peace and not worry that it be poor: if we have war, nothing is enough; if we have peace, nothing will be lacking.

c. 1552-1553

To love men, one must expect little from them.

1758

Carl Friedrich Thienpondt

Diana

Diana

ca. 1760

If there are foolishly credulous writers, people devoid of common sense [...] the copies should not be so rare; a single one would suffice to resolve the question.

17th century

Nothing is beautiful but the truth, the truth alone is lovable.

1819

What is there that one cannot find in the knowledge of man?

1746

Great sovereigns are necessarily as rare as great artists or great scientists.

1926

Monogrammist IM

The Crucifixion

The Crucifixion

ca. 1480

Purity is the power to contemplate defilement.

1947

[...] fearing [...] the instability of fortune, which often raises [someone] from the most deplorable situation to the height of prosperity in an instant.

100-120 AD

To be always free, must one always be irresolute?

1686

Allow [love] to lead you from the land of chimeras to the land of desires.

1718-1778

Eduard Gaertner

Parochialstrasse in Berlin

Parochialstrasse in Berlin

1831