He quelled disorders more by his authority and by being audacious, than by gentleness.
1580
The loss of the past, whether collective or individual, is the great human tragedy, and we have thrown ours away like a child tearing up a rose.
1943
[...] the ardor with which each party defended its liberty was the cause that one of them was always oppressed.
1513-1519
[...] if there is no such evidence, this teaching is called persuasion; it produces in the listener only that which is solely in the opinion of the speaker.
1772
Orpheus and Eurydice
1650
Courage has more resources against misfortunes than reason.
1747
It is almost ridiculous, when every other science is constantly progressing, to be always turning in the same spot in metaphysics, which nevertheless wants to be wisdom itself [...] and to make not the slightest progress.
1783
He must wish, after having thus known what he is, to also know where he comes from, and what he is to become.
1670
It is a sophism which consists in concluding from the fact that we give the same name to very different phenomena, that they are identical or similar.
1623
John Churchill (1650–1722), First Duke of Marlborough
1698
My intention is not so much that he should know how to imitate objects, but that he should know them.
1762
The doctrine of equality! But there is no more venomous poison, for it seems to be preached by justice itself, whereas it is the end of all justice.
1888
[Virtue] does not speak to us of superfluous austerities [...]; its sole project is to make its disciples and all men content, if possible, and to bring about their happiness at every moment of their existence.
1751
It is not in the history of the world [...] that one finds the idea of a plan and a whole realized, but in the life of the individual. Peoples exist only in abstracto: individuals are what is real.
1836
Limestone statuette of a male votary with Cypriot shorts and a diadem
first half of the 6th century BCE
I do not presume so much of myself as to believe I can foresee all that may cause difficulty for each person.
1641
It is not our senses that deceive us, but our will that deceives us through its hasty judgments.
1674-1675
God, this purely ideal, purely rational entity, does not exist outside of our idea, outside of our reason.
1841
How are compounds formed from the first elements, if there is neither contact, nor touch, nor mixtion of any kind?
c. 253-270 AD
A Brazilian Landscape
1650
Life and death being equally indifferent to him, the collapse of the universe would cause him no emotion.
4th century BC
One needs discernment in philosophical research, and judgment in the conduct of life.
1746
Neither facts nor ideas are [...] constitutive of science: science, always provisional and [...] symbolic, is born from the collaboration of the idea and the fact.
1915
Before the storm is formed, one must relentlessly reach the port.
1636
Olivier Journu (1724–1783)
1756
The disposition of mankind [...] to impose their own opinions and inclinations as a rule of conduct on others [...] is hardly ever kept under restraint by anything but want of power.
1859
Heaven doubtless has its reasons for all it allows, and perhaps it is a crime to complain.
1796
For social control to be rigorous and for the common conscience to be maintained, society must be divided into compartments small enough to completely envelop the individual.
1893
Do not love one another as men who seek only to corrupt [...] but love one another as those who love each other because they are gods, and sons of the Most High.
1263-1264
Bronze statuette of a goddess
1st–2nd century CE
[...] if water cannot come from fire, nor earth from water, it follows that black can no more come from white, nor the hard from the soft.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Wherever [...] the lion's skin cannot reach, one must sew on the fox's.
100-120 AD
He who values only his free will says: 'Put it in chains if it seems good to you.'
c. 108 AD
The beginning is the most important part of the work.
c. 375 BC
The Madonna of Humility, the Annunciation, the Nativity, and the Pietà
ca. 1465
[Signs], if we owe them almost all the progress of our intelligence, I believe them also to be the cause of almost all its deviations.
1801
Babel means the city of God, the holy city. The ancients gave this name to all their capitals.
1764
Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
1851/1852
He who subordinates reason and philosophy to theology is led to accept the prejudices of an ancient people as divine things.
1670
The Trinity in an Initial B
Probably 1387
I love liberty, not demagoguery.
1864-1866
We live in such a way that to see us unexpectedly is to catch us in a fault.
63-64 AD
April, the perfume of the gods, who, from the heavens, smell the scent of the plain.
1546/1563
[...] while some seek glory, and others riches, there is a third kind of man, [...] who, regarding all else as nothing, apply themselves principally to contemplation. These are the ones who call themselves philosophers.
45 BC
Man in a Red Cloak
1625
Nature cannot grant it [despotic power], since it has made no distinction between one person and another.
1690
The principle of sufficient reason alone makes all these phantoms of the imagination disappear. Men easily create fictions for want of properly using this great principle.
1715-1716
It is to [self-love] [...] that we must attribute the astonishing diversity of passions and characters.
1772
Intellectual greatness cannot be measured, like a vineyard or a meadow, with a surveyor's chain.
1926
Terracotta woman baking bread
ca. 600–480 BCE