This mathematical calculation of the unknown motion of a celestial body [...] awaits its confirmation from future observations.
1755
If it is true [...] that in all our pleasures [...] there is always a little illusion, they are prolonged and even increased [...] in proportion to the strength and duration of this enchanting prestige [...].
1760
It was enough for some good to flatter my heart for me to expect to lose it.
1782-1789
It is a general law of all our movements, that the more they are repeated, the easier and faster they become; and the easier and faster they are, the less perceptible they are.
1801
Still Life with Jar, Cup, and Apples
ca. 1877
From the moment men form a society, however rudimentary it may be, there are necessarily rules that govern their relations and, consequently, a morality [...].
1893
It would be impossible for there to be any failure in the world if the principles were not excellent; [...] there could be no disorder if there were not a primary and invariable rule.
c. 253-270 AD
The intellect knows the true only by composing or dividing, according to its judgment, and if this judgment is in agreement with things, it will be true.
c. 1270
In truth, my happiness and my freedom surge forth like a storm!
1883-1885
Study for "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte"
1884
The 'power of the people over themselves' does not express the true state of the case; [...] self-government [...] is not the government of each by himself, but of each by all the rest.
1859
This multiplication of ideas only produces obscurity, and serves only to make one lose sight of the main object.
1636
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.
By stooping to solicit and to beg, he reduced his very soul into dependence on the enemy who seemed master only of his body.
100-120 AD
Still Life of Grapes and Peaches
ca. 1617
It is not for the benefit of the Negroes, but for that of the whites, that slavery is destroyed in the United States.
1835-1840
As for good and evil, [...] who has come into the world without having the notion of it within them?
c. 108 AD
A divided city is half taken.
c. 1552-1553
I would rather die than slavishly beg for my life and be granted an existence far more dreadful than death.
4th century BC
Marble cinerary chest with lid
ca. 20–30 CE
Faith consists in believing not what seems true, but what seems false to our understanding.
1764
Reason teaches us to separate ourselves from these perishable goods, for [...] one sees the vice and poison hidden in the love of these things.
c. 1660
[The most sterile of undertakings is] that of the philosophers [...] who have claimed to find the marvelous secret of producing an artificial happiness, a reasoned and reflected pleasure.
1742
A prince is only truly strong through the strength of his nation. If it ceases to be respected, the prince ceases to be powerful.
1772
Steatite (?) pendant in the form of a bull's head
ca. 2200–1050 BCE
Faith is a virtue invented by men who feared the enlightenment of reason, who wanted to deceive their fellow men in order to subject them to their own authority [...].
1766
Sometimes he had talent, and sometimes he didn't.
1926
Thales [...] laid the foundations of philosophy in Greece.
45 BC
The action will not be right, if the will is not, since the will makes the action.
63-64 AD
Fragmentary bronze statuette of a male votary
ca. 1700–1450 BCE
Boredom is the moral leprosy that eats away at the countryside in our time. (The cities as well, for that matter.)
1962
Social relations are closely tied to productive forces. In acquiring new productive forces, men change their mode of production [...] they change all their social relations.
1847
When judging a particular action, one must consider many circumstances, and the whole man who produced it, before christening it.
1580
Morality is the true study of humankind.
1689
Statue of a man
6th century BCE or later
If the prince's religion becomes the religion of his subjects, the prince's reason will also become the reason of his subjects.
1674-1675
He preferred the care of his life to the care of the empire. How much more would he have preferred the care of his life to lesser cares?
4th century BC
We must resign ourselves to knowing little if we do not want to be ignorant of everything.
1882
Christianity adds superfluous evils to inevitable evils, [...] bodily sufferings to sufferings of the soul, natural contrasts to unnatural contrasts.
1842-1845
Graziella
1878
When [people], gathered in cities, mutually share the productions [...], it is natural that they all wish to enjoy all these productions.
1776
We expressly forbid all persons [...] from interfering in such an establishment, or causing it any trouble or hindrance, under any pretext whatsoever.
1662
Feeling [...] so well-disposed [...], I made use of stubbornness, where reason was of no use to me.
1643-1649
If we say that the sun attracts the earth across an empty space [...] all of this is but a phenomenon or an actual fact, discovered by experience.
1715-1716
Statuette of a boy
4th–3rd century BCE
For, as we know all too well, a cubic line of desire weighs more than a cubic inch of knowledge.
1840
To carry one's mind back into the past, and to make it, so to speak, ancient.
1623
It is a mistake to imagine that, among great personages, new benefits cause old injuries to be forgotten.
1855
What is there that one cannot find in the knowledge of man?
1746
Madonna and Child
ca. 1360–65