One must reread [a text], chastise it severely, add in all good faith what one can argue in one's favor, [and] what can be objected to.
1741-1784
Nothing great admits of mediocrity.
1746
After the first-order necessities, food and clothing, liberty is the first and most imperious need of human nature.
1869
the present overwhelms us, the future threatens us, and one suffers as much from the fear of living as from that of dying.
1527
Scene in the Jewish Quarter of Constantine
1851
Those who called themselves children of the gods were the fathers of imposture; and if they used lies to teach truths, they were unworthy to teach them.
1764
It is beyond doubt that piety towards one's country is the highest degree of piety a man can attain.
1670
I have always thought that we must concern ourselves with peace, and I have seen with sorrow that it was rejected [...].
46 BC
[Sacred jurisprudence] is sometimes contrary to reason, to civil law, to the rights of Sovereigns, and even to natural law, but all these rights are made to yield to divine rights.
1768
A River Landscape
ca. 1766–72
[The sheriff's position] places him above the suspicion of corruption by the parties [...].
1835-1840
Kant did not tolerate lulls: it was the name he gave to momentary pauses in conversation when its liveliness languished. He always found some way to rekindle the interest.
1827
When you play the fiddle at the top of the state, you must expect dancing down below.
1851/1852
Nothing is better suited to calm a soul plunged in sadness and affliction than the frequent contemplation of the reasons that produced this sadness in it.
1263-1264
Bronze tripod base for a thymiaterion (incense burner)
ca. 475–450 BCE
Others skim over everything, and attach themselves only to the bulk of events.
1623
A speaker may have good sense and fairness, but lack benevolence, and thus not give the best advice, even while knowing the subject.
329-323 BC
Strong imaginations are extremely contagious; they dominate the weak ones; they gradually give them their same turns of thought and imprint their same characters upon them.
1674-1675
The misuse of Words is a great obstacle to Knowledge.
1689
Lead figure of a goddess with spear and aegis, possibly Athena
6th–5th century BCE
In the darkness one sees fire, the stars, and their shapes. No one could claim that, in this case, the forms of objects, being imprinted on the dark air, are transmitted to the eye.
c. 253-270 AD
Driven from treason to treason by some evil Genius.
100-120 AD
No dissension is so great or so dangerous as that which comes from religion: it separates citizens, neighbors, friends, relatives [...], it breaks alliances [...] and penetrates to the depths of hearts to [...] entrench irreconcilable hatreds.
c. 1552-1553
The appearance of Sages causes the appearance of brigands, and the disappearance of Sages causes the disappearance of brigands. Sages and brigands, these two terms are correlative, one calls for the other [...].
4th century BC
Seated male figurine
ca. 600–480 BCE
[...] the effect must always be proportional to the action that is necessary to produce it [...].
1637
...which will provide a third convenience to the public of being lit from post to post.
1662
[The mind] is never at peace. Alarms follow the crime: a captive of his conscience which allows him no distraction, every wrongdoer is constantly summoned to answer to it.
63-64 AD
It is perhaps no less difficult to define than it is rare to possess a gift of this nature [the fiery spirit].
1636
Saint Francis of Assisi
ca. 1480–81
We invoke God and his aid in the conspiracy of our faults, and invite him to injustice.
1580
Once we have used a liberty, we acquire the need for it; it becomes as necessary to us and seems as sacred as the others.
1893
If, by freely expressing [...] the opinion I have of myself, I must offend the judges, I would rather die [...].
4th century BC
To deny a priori the possibility [of a real action of the dead] and to deride it [...] can have no other basis than the conviction that death is the absolute end of man.
1836
Limestone strainer
3900 BCE - 100 CE
The version of the story that satisfies the mind is the one where Iseut is not humiliated, nor is Tristan suspected of having deceived his beloved.
1926
Movement in itself, separated from force, is something merely relative, and one cannot determine its subject.
1686
A newly re-established magistrate does not start with the power his predecessor had, but with that which the law gives him.
1762
One can define the comic by one or more general characteristics [...] that have been encountered in comic effects gathered here and there.
1900
Haystacks: Autumn
ca. 1874
Properly speaking, we cannot have a real memory of a simple and pure sensation: nor can we truly make it known to another who has not experienced it.
1805
Men are always against reason when reason is against them.
18th century
To succeed in any kind of trade, it is not enough to have the freedom to do it; one must [...] have acquired knowledge, and this knowledge can only be the fruit of experience.
1776
Those who helped this man were not fully aware of who he truly was. They barely suspected his true greatness.
1896
Marble stele (grave marker) of a woman
ca. 375–350 BCE
Think rather that if life flees, if youth is but a flower that soon withers, we must all the more seize the moment when we possess it [...] & not lose any particle of such a fleeting existence.
1742
The victor lives his own dream, the vanquished lives the dream of another.
1968
It is ridiculous to say: 'Advise me.' What you should say is this: 'Make my soul conform to everything that happens to it.'
c. 108 AD
Tradition states [...] that Tragedy arose from the tragic chorus, and was originally only chorus and nothing but chorus.
1872
The Marriage of the Virgin
ca. 1479