Religion is the art of intoxicating men with enthusiasm, to prevent them from dealing with the evils with which their rulers overwhelm them here below.
1766
Economists express the relations of bourgeois production [...] as fixed, immutable, eternal categories.
1847
[...] one esteems on hearsay even the work that bores us.
1772
The criminal type is the type of the strong man placed in unfavorable conditions, a strong man who has become sick.
1888
Bronze cauldron
7th century BCE
In the psychological domain, consciousness would not be synonymous with existence but only with real action or immediate effectiveness [...].
1896
I love those who rise, those who become, those who fulfill themselves, more than those who burst forth.
1926
Arguments [...] are more useful for deliberation when borrowed from historical facts; for future events, most often, have their analogues in the past.
329-323 BC
It would have been far more honorable [...] to appear to have granted passage, than to have it taken by force.
1513-1519
Self-Portrait
1795
Although a passion, for being secret, is no less a passion, [...] it matters greatly to know how to make a mystery of it.
1636
We know that the bad tendencies of human nature are kept within their limits only when they are not allowed to run free.
1869
If a man is willing to remain at his post and to defend himself against the enemy without running away, you may be sure that he is a man of courage.
c. 380 BC
The contradiction in the revelation of God.
1841
Dancers, Pink and Green
ca. 1890
...it is better to be scorned for one's candor than to be continually tormented by the need to dissemble.
49 to 62 A.D.
One wants to believe, but does not know what to believe; for when one wants to know what one wants to believe [...] these phantoms [...] often go up in smoke.
1674-1675
The Will [...] is determined in us by what I call uneasiness.
1689
It is certain that an infinity of thoughts come back to us that we have forgotten having had.
1704
Bronze handle
5th century BCE
The English rarely hate without conspiring.
1756
All things have sympathy for one another through their irrational life.
c. 253-270 AD
The continuation of the righteousness of the faithful is nothing other than the continuation of the infusion of grace, and not a single grace that endures forever.
1656-1657
All the passions that are fatal to republics grow with the extent of the territory, while the virtues that support them do not increase in the same measure.
1835-1840
Two fragments of a limestone sarcophagus lid with snakes
first half of the 5th century BCE
If I am pressed to say why I loved him, I feel that it cannot be expressed except by answering: 'Because it was he, because it was I.'
1580
Potency and act divide all being [...].
c. 1270
It is characteristic of our mind to form general propositions of knowledge from particular ones.
17th century
A contract of the people with such or such persons would be a particular act. From which it follows that this contract [...] would be illegitimate.
1762
Mademoiselle Nys
1899
I am convinced that the most fervent Christians [...] do not concentrate their attention much more when they pray or read the Gospel. Why suppose it is any better elsewhere?
1957
To fear blame at every turn is proof of a gentle and simple character, it is true, but one that has no greatness.
100-120 AD
It is impossible to honor those one despises, nor to willingly obey those one hates and holds in horror.
c. 1552-1553
Our passions are not susceptible to those impressions that come from the refinement of the mind and imagination.
1751
Saint Stephen (with the Angel of the Annunciation)
1389
Some, too fond of their own wit, audaciously invent facts.
1623
Thus, a time comes when the exploitation of mines can no longer be profitable. It is not the same for the cultivation of produce, which is consumed in order to be reproduced.
1776
One must suffer the enlightened and impartial criticisms made of the most estimable men or works [...].
1746
Because everything in [them] works against nature, the good for which nature has given the predisposition is far from being extracted from the human being.
1777
A Meadow Bordered by Trees
ca. 1845–60
[Diderot] shows himself in all his philosophical undress.
1741-1784
You do not think that you are reading; you believe that these are things happening before your very eyes.
45 BC
Indiscretion or gallantry = adultery.
1830-1831
Just as rest clarifies water, so it enlightens the vital spirits, among them intelligence.
4th century BC
Garden of the Painter at Saint Clair
1908
The more often we have had any given perception, the more easily we remember it; but also the less this memory strikes and moves us.
1801
The more a man governs himself according to reason, that is to say the freer he is, the more faithful he is to the common law.
1670
[...] the images of the totemic being are more sacred than the totemic being itself.
1912
For the present case [...] has he given you nothing? Has he not given you patience? Has he not given you greatness of soul? Has he not given you courage?
c. 108 AD
Portrait of a Man, possibly Matteo di Sebastiano di Bernardino Gozzadini
1494(?)