The entire occupation of kings [...] relates to only two objects: to extend their domination abroad, and to make it more absolute within.
1762
A miracle is an effect contrary to the constant laws of nature; consequently, God himself, without offending his wisdom, cannot perform miracles.
1766
The scaffold, the terror of the wicked, becomes the glorious stage where tolerance and virtue shine in all their splendor and publicly cover the sovereign majesty with shame!
1670
True life [...] begins for those who escape from the bonds of the body where they were captive; but what you call life is really death.
54-51 BC
Saint John on Patmos
ca. 1511
What will never be seen [...] in [democratic societies that are not free], are great citizens, and especially a great people, and [...] the common level of hearts and minds will never cease to sink so long as equality and despotism are combined therein.
1856
His excursions were all made inside the human heart or on the wings of fantasy.
1926
To prefer Vice to Virtue is visibly to judge wrongly.
1689
The works which have for their object eternal life survive death, and the fruit of these works begins to appear when the fruit of carnal works is forever annihilated.
1263-1264
Bronze strainer
5th century BCE
I live thus, without attachment, between heaven and earth, satisfied and content. Why should I burden myself with the empire?
4th century BC
Most busy themselves seeking the origin of the evil; some say, 'The astrologers threaten us,' others, 'The prophets foretold it.'
1527
The dream, on the contrary, is like something entirely foreign, like something which, like the external world, imposes itself upon us without our participation, and even against our will.
1836
When one passes away with a body full of health and a soul full of tenderness, how could one not be an object of regret?
4th century BC
The Burial of Christ
1595
There is a certain taste for perfection that makes us unjust.
1751
The adverse fate that always attaches itself to metaphysics willed that Hume was understood by no one.
1783
It is one of my great maxims that it is good to seek demonstrations of the axioms themselves.
1704
No one wants to be pitied for their mistakes.
1747
Upper part of the marble stele (grave marker) of Kallidemos
ca. 350–325 BCE
None of our judgments, taken in itself and in isolation, is or can be false.
1805
The husband and wife are one legal person; which is to say that everything that is hers is his, but not the reciprocal [...].
1869
It takes great qualities to make a hero.
1636
To think about change and to see it, there is a whole veil of prejudices to be drawn aside, [...] some created by philosophical speculation, others natural to common sense.
1911
Bronze phiale (libation bowl) with four swinging handles
ca. 550 BCE
In those points where I have grasped the truth, I have some hope that if, on a first reading, some doubt arises [...], on a second reading, the answer will present itself.
1623
A happiness that has never been disturbed collapses at the first blow. [...] man becomes hardened to suffering, and becomes indomitable.
c. 64 AD
The river Lethe is this union with the body that makes the soul forget its true nature.
c. 253-270 AD
As His Majesty takes pleasure in providing various conveniences to his subjects, [...] this gives occasion for minds to seek new ones every day.
1662
Statuette of a woman
3rd–1st century BCE
This pity you are the object of, is it your doing or that of the people who pity you?
c. 108 AD
Man's moral education is now left almost entirely to chance. To perfect it, its plan should be directed towards public utility.
1772
We 'conserve' nothing, we do not want to return to any past, we are not in any way 'liberal', we do not work for 'progress' [...].
1882
The exclusive company formed [...] to revive the ashes [of a colony] achieved nothing.
1770
Knife
670 BCE - 330 CE
Sharp minds are those who notice by reason the slightest differences in things [...]. But weak minds have only a false delicacy; they are neither quick nor piercing.
1674-1675
God as a moral being or law.
1841
The markets make the law for the government.
1776
When one assumes, as France did in 1789, the function of thinking for the universe, of defining justice for it, one does not become the owner of human flesh.
1943
Madonna and Child with Saints
1607
Be resolved to serve no more, and you are at once free. [...] Do not support him any longer, and you will see him, like a great colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.
c. 1552-1553
Everything is an enigma and a mystery: doubt, uncertainty, suspense of judgment, these are the only results of our most exact inquiries.
1757
To say change is not necessarily to say progress. We see how the division of labor appears to us in a different light than it does to economists.
1893
They rather prove thereby that they only love them when they are dead.
1580
Terracotta antefix (roof tile) with head of a maenad
late 4th century BCE
The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest people of past centuries who were their authors.
1637
The unlimited independence of the individual will cannot be a barrier against the vices that each of us carries within.
c. 350 BCE
But in revolution, as in war, it is always necessary to face the enemy, and the attack is always advantageous.
1851-1852
He did not cease [...] to advise peace: he wrote frequently to Caesar; he made strong entreaties to Pompey, neglecting nothing to soften both rivals and calm their disagreements.
100-120 AD
Bronze oinochoe (jug)
late 6th century BCE