Because of this kinship, man sees in the animals of the totemic species benevolent associates on whose assistance he believes he can count.
1912
Let anyone try outrage and injustice against you; you will suffer nothing, if virtue is with you.
63-64 AD
It would be vain to turn away from the past to think only of the future. [...] The opposition between the future and the past is absurd.
1943
So true it is that real pleasure is not measured by expense & that joy is more a friend of pennies than of gold coins.
1776-1778
Venus and the Lute Player
ca. 1565–70
In democratic countries and times, one must be placed at the head of the people and not put oneself there.
1893
For the branch, there is no other alternative than to be united with the vine or to be thrown into the fire. If it does not remain attached to the vine, it will be thrown into the fire; let it therefore remain united with the vine to avoid the fire.
1263-1264
April, the perfume of the gods, who, from the heavens, smell the scent of the plain.
1546/1563
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
Head of a Child
1768
To remain wavering and divided, to keep one's affection motionless and without inclination in the troubles of one's country [...], I find it neither beautiful nor honorable.
1580
By tormenting myself [...], I may well arrive at pain; but, as for pleasure, however much I strive for it, I will never give it to myself, in spite of nature.
1742
I discover at the same time that this body has extension, and that my movement consists in traversing it; these two ideas are [...] absolutely correlative, and cannot exist one without the other.
1817
All language speaks too slowly for me: — I leap into your chariot, storm!
1883-1885
Limestone chest with incised decoration
8th century BCE?
Should we be surprised, then, to find so few virtuous men, so few men instructed in their duties to society?
1772
It is sweet for me to think that those who did everything to prevent me from doing a great and beautiful thing will nevertheless be proven wrong.
1741-1784
Emptiness, peace, contentment, apathy, silence, a global vision, non-intervention; this whole is the formula of the influence of heaven and earth, of the Principle.
4th century BC
Experience provides no universal conclusion.
1772
Man Weighing Gold
ca. 1515–20
Each substance expresses the entire universe in its own way.
1686
In any operation performed by the hand of man, if one does not resort to instruments and machines, one can neither extend the strength of individuals nor make them mutually supportive.
1620
Sickness is the natural state of the Christian.
1670
Man, without wanting to, without knowing it, creates God in his human image: later this created God creates, wanting to, knowing it, the universe and man.
1841
Francis I (1494–1547), King of France
1507
[Plato] was only able to learn from Socrates for eight years.
45 BC
[One must] make it so that the principal contentment depends only on oneself.
1643-1649
Does not the whole economy of the Gospel rest on the fact that the only Son of God [...] showed himself clothed in human nature, and by his passion and his death paid the ransom for our sins [...]?
1661-1676
It is one thing to use, another to understand.
c. 108 AD
Portrait of a Man
1741
The will is but a desire that is not fought, that has its object in its power, or at least believes it has [...].
1746
[...] the degree which combination has reached in a country clearly marks the rank it occupies in the hierarchy of the world market.
1847
There is perhaps not a single living being who would not have already ended their existence, if this end were something purely negative [...]. But there is a positive side to it: the destruction of the body.
1851
He said that he was accustomed to choosing his soldiers, not to buying them: a word worthy of a great prince, but which gave birth to an implacable hatred against him in the hearts of the soldiers.
100-120 AD
Allée of Chestnut Trees
1878
This curiosity to read the future is a sickness that only philosophy can cure.
1764
It is to make oneself a slave against the will of God to submit to the false appearances of truth.
1674-1675
To say that the same internal causes produce the same effects is to suppose that the same cause can present itself several times on the stage of consciousness.
1889
[Reputation] that depends on ancestors is so deceptive [...] that it soon vanishes when personal virtue does not accompany it.
1513-1519
Horse and rider
ca. 750–600 BCE
The internal sanction of duty, whatever our standard of duty may be, is one and the same—a feeling in our own mind.
1861
Everyone is born with two kinds of rights. The first is the right over one's own person, of which one alone can dispose. The second is the right one has [...] to inherit the property of one's brothers or father.
1690
It seems [...] more in conformity with human nature to base the expectation of another life on the sentiments of a well-ordered soul, than to base one's conduct on the hope of another life.
1766
How common it is for a happy man to deceive himself about the immutability of his happiness!
1636
Madonna Adoring the Sleeping Child
early 1460s
Not every truth is good to endure. We are the children of the past. It is true, but it is perhaps better to forget it than to remember it too much.
1926
Protection was scarcely granted except to those who paid for it, or who gave up a share of their profit.
1776
All that is beautiful in the world, it holds from the One who formed it, but all that happens [...] that is bad and unjust, it receives from that prior state.
c. 253-270 AD
Passion is that which, by modifying us, produces differences in our judgments and is followed by pain and pleasure.
329-323 BC
A Bouquet of Flowers in a Crystal Vase
1662