Every substance is like a whole world and like a mirror of God or of the whole universe, which each one expresses in its own way, much as the same city is represented differently according to the different positions of the one who looks at it.
1686
The struggle for higher wages [...] is merely a reaction of labor against the previous action of capital.
1865
If you fall into ecstasy before external things, you will necessarily have to roll in all directions, at the whim of your master.
c. 108 AD
These precautions had become necessary for public safety; [The city] was prey to thieves and burglars at night.
1662
The Afternoon Meal (La Merienda)
ca. 1772
What is actually given is a reciprocity of displacement.
1922
[A God] who would transform himself into a world [...] to endure misery, suffering, and death, without measure or end, in the form of countless millions of living beings [...].
1851
A frequently experienced sensation becomes less vivid for us [...] the more often it is renewed, the less it draws our attention.
1801
Wherever I am well, there I find my homeland.
45 BC
Madonna and Child
ca. 1360–65
[The Devil] is the lynchpin of the Church. God could with a single word plunge him back into nothingness, but He is careful not to, He needs him too much, to blame on him all the foolishness of which He could be accused.
1768
The flower is but a leaf mad with love.
1926
If the peoples who preceded us had held the respect for individual dignity that we profess today, they could not have survived.
1893
He is not in love who does not love always.
329-323 BC
Chalcedony amulet, thunderbolt
664–334 BCE
I am currently working [...] on a tragedy that, I hope, will be more fortunate.
1741-1784
The multitude believes more in persons than in things, and [...] is more persuaded by the authority of the speaker than by the reasons he gives.
c. 1552-1553
And so it was that [...] Giov. Matteo, who knew more than the devil, soon returned home, full of joy.
1518-1527
It is good that several people apply themselves to anatomy, since it is extremely useful to know it, and the knowledge to which we should aspire is that which is most useful to us.
1674-1675
A Woman with the Initials MCC
1773
Where vice reigns so imperiously, it cannot be overstated, let us not believe that peace of mind and pleasure can dwell.
1746
This doctrine [...] of the necessary revolution which carries souls out of the world and brings them back again is an error.
c. 253-270 AD
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
The human virtue that knows how to reduce its needs the most is therefore the most perfect and the most divine.
100-120 AD
Spatula or curette
7000 BCE - 330 CE
[...] it had never entered their minds that monarchy was jure divino, by divine right; nothing of the sort had ever been heard of until this great mystery was revealed by the theology of recent centuries.
1690
Wherever a single [entity] holds power, the good of others is cared for only to the extent that this good may be useful to the one that is master.
1677
The wise man is the most eager pursuer of natural wealth.
63-64 AD
There is a word without words... Sometimes there is no need for words...
4th century BC
The Organ Rehearsal
1885
[Democratic peoples] bring the spirit of business into agriculture, and their industrial passions are displayed there as elsewhere.
1835-1840
Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood [...] by the masses.
c. 375 BC
The word of man is divine, in other words: it is an immense and incommensurable power like thought, of which it is the invisible body.
1841
They must be able to take credit for the low prices they maintain in some provinces, to justify the high prices they set in others.
1776
Limestone statuette of a temple girl
3rd century BCE–1st century CE
A government that uses words and thoughts too lofty for it, far from receiving any brilliance from them, discredits them and makes itself ridiculous.
1943
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 habit of success is so flattering that most people always aspire to new successes [...], like those with dropsy who cannot quench their thirst.
1636
I am bound not to rob, not to murder [...]; but why am I bound to promote the general happiness? If my own happiness lies in something else, why may I not give that the preference?
1861
The Villa Loredan, Paese
early 1780s
However sublime the definition [...] that a religion may give of the divinity; [...] most believers will seek to attract divine favor less by virtue [...] than by frivolous observances [...], by fanatic ecstasies [...].
1757
[The concept of] the will to power.
1888
The life I am forced to lead does not leave me the disposition of enough time to acquire a habit of meditation according to your rules.
1643-1649
Rarely does [Truth] enlighten a proud mortal: He who seeks it with his heart may one day know it.
1723-1728
Grainfields
mid- or late 1660s
To wish to arrive at absolute certainty is, in a way, a testimony to madness and extreme uncertainty.
1580
Imagining that, to penetrate the secrets of nature, it was enough to meditate with obstinacy, to turn one's mind, so to speak, in every direction, and to keep it in perpetual agitation.
1620
Civilized man himself, if he is no longer restrained by this fear, becomes cruel and barbaric.
1772
By dint of being perfect, [a society of true Christians] would lack cohesion; its destructive vice would lie in its very perfection.
1762
Terracotta head of a youth
2nd century BCE (?)