Great thoughts come from the heart.
1747
Man is here below to be happy; the Gods have given him the means to be so.
c. 108 AD
It does not follow from the fact that the human mind [...] knows itself to be nothing other than a thinking thing, that its nature or its essence is only to think.
1641
Good actions are sublimated evil actions: evil actions are good actions crudely, foolishly performed.
1878
Inscribed marble statue base
ca. 270–250 BCE
[Movable wealth] multiplies like our artificial needs, which can multiply endlessly.
1776
A man who has never left his country usually imagines that the morals and customs of foreigners are contrary to reason because they are contrary to the custom of his own city [...].
1674-1675
And thus the legislative and executive power come often to be separated.
1690
If I advance in age, I know I will necessarily have to pay my tribute to old age; my sight will weaken, my hearing will diminish, my intellect will decline...
4th century BC
Leisure Time in an Elegant Setting
ca. 1663–65
It is artificial, unnatural science that has caused all the evils of this world, and the misfortune of all who inhabit it.
4th century BC
To say change is not necessarily to say progress. We see how the division of labor appears to us in a different light than it does to economists.
1893
It is always four or five who maintain the tyrant, four or five who keep the whole country in servitude.
c. 1552-1553
May each day of my life, happy until its decline, be a plucked rose that loses its petals in my hand.
1926
Bronze jug
ca. 6th–early 5th century BCE
The continual contradictions in the world caused by pride [...] have forced the introduction of the rules of propriety or politeness, in order to facilitate the commerce of the mind and of conversation.
1751
Miracles were invented only to prove to men things impossible to believe; there would be no need for miracles if one spoke to them with reason.
1766
The consideration of his fall teaches us how much man must be wary of his own strength.
1263-1264
The number of volumes in a work depends on the length of the manuscript, [...] on the subject and the way it is treated, all things that concern only the author.
1741-1784
Bronze handle of a vessel with Silenos mask
450–400 BCE
How sweet it is to meet again after so long an absence and to renew an old friendship when one least thinks of it!
1627
To succeed [...], one must renew one's brilliant deeds.
1513-1519
Another sign of a prosperity nearing its end is its long duration: fortune grows old [...] with the years, as we do.
1636
However indistinct, wavering, and confused the notion associated with the word 'God' may be, two attributes are nevertheless inseparable from this word: supreme power and supreme wisdom.
1851
Marble grave relief with a funerary banquet and departing warriors
2nd century BCE
Our misery, we do not create it. It is real. That is why we must cherish it. All the rest is imaginary.
1947
Man is free when he exercises the faculty of the reasonable soul [...]. He is subject to necessity [...] when he exercises the faculties of the irrational soul and the body.
c. 253-270 AD
Should we be surprised, then, to find so few virtuous men, so few men instructed in their duties to society?
1772
Outlawed again, Marx took refuge in London, where he settled.
March 17, 1883
Bronze strainer with loop handle
5th century BCE
Always and everywhere, one feels this love of good, this perfect sincerity, which captivates the heart and makes one overlook the most glaring imperfections.
100-120 AD
How can we conceive of the strength [...] we would need to triumph over our most vivid passions, if virtue had to draw its weapons from the arsenal of metaphysics [...]?
1797-1798
There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: to find that limit [...] is as indispensable [...] as protection against political despotism.
1859
The most beautiful right of man is this independence [of thought]; But do not argue.
1764
Bronze statuette of a goddess
ca. 3rd–1st century BCE
[...] it is quite otherwise if one speaks [...] of that eternal Wisdom of God which has manifested itself in all things, and principally in the human soul.
1661-1676
And the very fact that we do not feel we are sick makes our recovery more difficult.
1580
The punishment of deportation intimidates no one, and it emboldens many on the path of crime.
1864-1866
Space is not an affection of one or more bodies [...] but it is always, and without variation, the immensity of an immense being, who never ceases to be the same.
1715-1716
Terracotta antefix (roof tile) with head of a maenad
late 4th century BCE
What should make us believe that the composition of comets is fiery is that their appearance most often announces winds and droughts.
c. 334 BC
Just as swallows come to us with the good weather and fly away at the touch of cold, so false friends [...] all fly away at the first harsh breath of fortune.
86-82 BC
[The happy life...] to estimate it by number, measure, and parts is to strip it of its excellence.
63-64 AD
It appears that during the following century, the practice was established [...] of maintaining, at the expense of the inhabitants, lanterns at the crossroads and in the middle of each street.
1662
Terracotta head of a woman wearing a high headdress
late 5th century BCE
The proper study of man is that of his relationships.
1762
The acquisition of our belief in the law of causality is one and the same with the progressive coordination of our tactile impressions with our visual impressions.
1900
'The artist stands before his finished work of art as before an enigma, about which he can fall into the same errors as others'.
1896
Beware of poets, and of philosophers who [...] reason from their imagination, and not from facts; they are charming enchanters, but very dangerous seducers.
1801
Arrowhead
ca. 480–330 BCE