Civil man is born, lives, and dies in slavery [...].
1762
[Truths] are innate, which is to say that they can be found within oneself.
1704
He [...] recommended them to be always light and frivolous, since it only made them more amiable and happier.
1768
[...] thousands of ambitious people who, to gain some disastrous advantage, run through so many evils toward a new evil, coveting what they will soon flee [...].
63-64 AD
The Sacrifice of Polyxena
1630
To eat this food and drink this beverage is, therefore, to abide in Jesus Christ, and to have Jesus Christ abiding in oneself.
1263-1264
God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him!
1882
To say that God has revealed Himself only to announce mysteries is to say that God has revealed Himself only to remain unknown, to hide His ways from us, to confuse our minds, to increase our ignorance.
1766
one must never give full consent except to propositions that appear so evidently true that one cannot refuse it to them without feeling an inner pain and secret reproaches from reason [...].
1674-1675
Marble forepart of a left sandaled foot
1st or 2nd century CE
Pure a priori concepts, containing nothing borrowed from experience [...] these are the foundations of morality [according to Kant]. Shells without kernels.
1840
Scientific research, as recommended by Claude Bernard, is a dialogue between man and nature.
1915
It is so, because it is so; it is not so, because it is not so.
4th century BC
Men are so avid for novelty that even the fortunate desire it as eagerly as those whose lot is to be pitied.
1513-1519
Bronze statuette of a satyr dancing
5th century BCE
He thus saw for himself almost as much damage and peril in winning as in being vanquished.
1893
[The event] led to the resolution [...] to cease his outings and to live in complete solitude.
1643-1662
All faith is [...] a conviction that is subjectively sufficient, but accompanied by the consciousness of its objective insufficiency. It is thus opposed to knowing.
1786
One is only unhappy where God does not want us to be.
1760
Portrait of a Man
1703
For I feel well, which is the sweetest thought, that I have lived my whole life in piety and justice.
4th century BC
What did it serve him to have conquered an entire world, since he lost the privilege of great men, which is to know how to command oneself.
1636
The men who tremble most before the laws are the most intrepid against the enemy; and those who most dread suffering are those who least fear blame.
100-120 AD
There is nothing superfluous (except for the overly delicate).
1574
Terracotta statuette of a woman
late 4th–early 3rd century BCE
As the gods acquire more knowledge and authority, they become more fearsome.
1757
It is sufficient to judge well to do well, and to judge as well as we can to do our best.
1637
— I will cut off your head. — When did I ever tell you that I was the only one whose head could not be cut off?
c. 108 AD
The sea is judged to be calm when its surface is not stirred by the slightest wind; and likewise the soul is judged to be tranquil when no disturbance agitates it.
45 BC
View of Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme
1896–98
The ultimate end of the state is not to dominate men, nor to restrain them by fear, [...] but on the contrary to permit each one, as far as possible, to live in security.
1670
In a word, I do not claim to give my opinion for others.
1737-1771
Wealth in paper was so convenient that people sought only to delude themselves; and [...] they received it with confidence once more.
1776
Solitude is to the mind what diet is to the body: deadly when it is too long, although necessary.
1746
The Golden Age
1605
Utility is the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being.
1859
We say of someone who learns that he becomes learned, but we do not thereby say that he comes to be and is produced absolutely.
c. 350 B.C.E.
The search for balance is bad because it is imaginary. Revenge [...] is, in a sense, imaginary.
1947
We must always start from the impressions we receive, that is to say, from the facts; examining them with attention so as to see in them nothing but what is there [...].
1817
Bronze support in the form of a ram's head and foreleg
1st century BCE–1st century CE
Perhaps one should abide by the author's judgment, and not needlessly increase the mass of documents [...] that he himself deemed negligible.
1896
If one were to judge its price by the passions it excites, [...] one would find that there is nothing more estimable, as there is nothing more effective.
1926
Confusion is the transmutation of two or more bodily qualities, such that a new thing is born from it, different from those qualities.
c. 253-270 AD
The garment of the church is a garment of many colors.
1623
Die-counter or draught piece
3900 BCE - 100 CE
In all the work of [...] Spencer, the methodological problem has no place.
1895
I always call reason that appearance of discourse that each forges in himself: that reason [...] of which there can be a hundred contraries on the same subject.
1580
The people [...] always have the right to shake off the yoke, and to free themselves from the usurpation or tyranny that the sword and violence have introduced [...].
1690
In the secondary States, where things had taken a comparatively quiet turn, the bourgeoisie had long since thrown themselves back into that noisy, but fruitless, parliamentary agitation which was most congenial to them.
1851-1852
Marble two-sided relief
1st century CE