Laughter [...] belongs to man, insofar as he notices something good in himself.
c. 1660
[...] the paths through which the spirits flow are smoother and more united by the habit of practice[...]
1674-1675
The peril is less moving than the idea of the peril.
1926
One must always see the symptom of some obstacle in the fact that an artist interrupts his creative work to present himself to the world as a theorist.
1896
Marble table leg (trapezophoros) with reliefs of griffins
5th century BCE
It is hoped that this work [...] will merit above all the approval of the Clergy, who will find all their rights established therein on an unshakeable basis.
1768
[...] there was not one general [...] who was not corrupted as soon as he had touched [great power].
100-120 AD
Few people have a mind deep enough to reconcile so many truths, and to strip them of the errors with which they are mixed.
1746
Before doing anything, a true Sage examines the goal and chooses the means. [...] they expose such a precious object for such a minimal and uncertain result. In reality, they do even worse, for the life they expose is more precious.
4th century BC
Fragment of a statuette of a woman
4th–3rd centuries BCE
A free judgment offends the ears of the great.
1574
It is with the empire of Charles the Bald that the great feudal government begins, and the decadence of all things.
1753-1754
To be always free, must one always be irresolute?
1686
One could use [amber] to preserve [...] the bodies of illustrious men. This material [...] is quite rare; but great men are even rarer.
1623
Marble architectural fragment with palmette from the Temple of Artemis at Sardis
3rd or 2nd century BCE
It is not [...] science that suppresses philosophy: it is already suppressed in the real development of which it was only the distorted reflection.
1841
A judgment is, therefore, only the perception of a relationship between two ideas that one compares.
1754
If [the affair] does not succeed, all this only serves to let the world know that one has had plans that have failed.
1643-1649
If all objects strongly affect youth, it is because all are new to them.
1772
Madame Bergeret de Frouville as Diana
1756
The necessity we are under of believing without knowledge [...] should make us more careful to inform ourselves, than to constrain others to receive our sentiments.
1689
The greatest genius, if not born a poet, cannot become one, or if nature [...] abandons him, he lays down the lyre, and does not flatter himself that he can supply, with the help of rules, that enthusiasm which is the sole principle of a divine harmony.
1742
The very pain that pity causes you to feel makes you worthy of pity.
c. 108 AD
[The insurrection] was not [...] a political struggle, but a class struggle, a kind of servile war.
1893
Marble bust of a youth
ca. 140 CE
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
If the temperament is fiery, choleric, amorous, and if the Creature, taming these passions, devotes itself to virtue, in spite of their efforts; [...] its merit is all the greater.
1745
Jesus Christ was not king of Israel to impose tributes, to raise and arm troops, but to govern souls and lead them into the kingdom of heaven.
1263-1264
Only individuals exist in nature.
1801
Two fulcra (headrest) attachments in the form of mule's heads
ca. late 3rd–1st century BCE
Aristotle [...] recognizes [Zeno of Elea] as the inventor of dialectics.
45 BC
Philosophy, not as a doctrine, but as a critique, [serves to] prevent the missteps of judgment (lapsus judicii) in the use of the pure concepts that the understanding provides us.
1781
The spirit of evil and nature are one, and where nature is not tamed, the evil spirit is not tamed either.
1851
[This establishment] provides [opportunities] to those who will be employed in this activity; for example to a number of laborers [...] who, in the winter season, can find no work to earn their living.
1662
A City on a Rock
1800
If things thought are beings, it follows that things which are not cannot be thought; for contrary properties belong to contraries.
c. 350 B.C.E.
I divided my time between study, pleasure, and business, in such a way that none of these could harm the other.
1518
There are [...] men whose function is precisely to see and to make us see what, naturally, we would not perceive. They are the artists.
1934
Uprootedness is by far the most dangerous sickness of human societies, for it multiplies itself.
1943
Limestone funerary cippus
ca. 2nd–3rd century CE
The ultimate sanction of all morality (external motives apart) is a subjective feeling in our own minds.
1861
A hero never appears greater than in circumstances capable of obscuring the glory of anyone other than himself.
1636
In such a frail body, has nature given us an appetite so insatiable that we surpass in greed the largest of animals?
63-64 AD
Such is the blessed condition of the intelligible world that in doing nothing it does great things, and in remaining within itself it produces important works.
c. 253-270 AD
Boatman among the Reeds
ca. 1865
God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him!
1882
[Old age] deadens in me the care for the course of the world, the care for riches, for greatness, for knowledge, for health, for myself.
1580
If I become aware of this loss of my faculties, and I displease myself, how could I still find pleasure in living?
4th century BC
The solidarity produced by the division of labor [...] supposes that individuals differ from one another.
1893
Lead figure of a goddess with spear and aegis, possibly Athena
6th–5th century BCE