If it were as easy to command the mind as it is to command the tongue, every power would reign in security, and no government would need to resort to violence.
1670
Doubt and living faith, one fleeting, the other immutable, were born for him on the same day; as if God [...] had wished to furnish the heart of the fortress with an impregnable rampart.
1670
Given that a defeat would risk annihilating, for an indefinite period, everything that gives human life its value in our eyes, it is clear that we must fight by any means that seem to us [...] effective.
1934-1942
He has very strange opinions in physics, which hardly seem sustainable.
1686
Bronze statuette of a satyr dancing
5th century BCE
A concept is only worth the potential perceptions it represents.
1911
His soul, which nothing agitates, gives itself over to the sole feeling of its present existence, without any idea of the future, however near it may be [...].
1755
The value of labor power [...] is determined by the value of the necessaries of life, that is, by the quantity of labor required to produce them.
1865
The revelation of truth does not alter the peace of states; its very slowness is a guarantee of this.
1772
The Highland Family
1824
An author authorizes the Censors to modify themselves everything that had displeased them; they turn it completely upside down and the author approves.
1926
Whatever one does not cultivate for its own sake, one cultivates only by half.
1905
Men must attempt everything and be frightened of nothing, because God protects those who have courage [...].
1512-1527
You did not take it, and you were supposed to take it.
1775
Limestone head of a girl
3rd century BCE
Pardon, king, [...] poverty, not distress. The scholar who possesses the knowledge of the Principle and its action is never in distress.
4th century BC
Some fall asleep on the authority of prejudices and even admit contradictory ones, for want of going to the point where they contradict each other.
1746
If the fact is true, one must nonetheless take all these precautions in recounting it; otherwise, the truth can often seem implausible.
86-82 BC
Inner tranquility, the testimony of a good conscience, irreproachable morals, a pure and innocent life are things essential to our happiness.
1751
Marble doorjamb fragment from the Temple of Artemis at Sardis
ca. 117–138 CE
Syllogisms are drawn from probabilities; yet many of these probabilities may seem to contradict one another.
329-323 BC
It most often happens [...] that everyone chooses to discourse on another's trade rather than on their own, thinking it is so much new reputation acquired.
1580
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
If to have liberty it is necessary only to desire it, if only a simple act of will is needed, will there be any nation in the world that still deems it too expensive [...]?
c. 1552-1553
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1470
The entire history of social progress consists in the series of transitions that lead a custom or institution to pass from the rank of a primary necessity [...] to that of a universally condemned injustice.
1861
Fast, drink water, forbid yourself every kind of desire, so that you may one day know how to desire in accordance with reason.
c. 108 AD
I see no other remedy for this evil than to bring teaching [...] back to the fundamental teaching of a smaller number of things.
1790
Do all souls form a single soul?
c. 253-270 AD
Terracotta head of a woman
late 4th–early 3rd century BCE
Everything changes, nothing perishes.
1623
To assist, in the sense in which this word is used here, is to be in relation.
c. 1270
We will consider this body as a machine, which, having been made by the hands of God, is incomparably better ordered [...] than any of those that can be invented by men.
1637
There is only one way to speak well at the rostrum, and that is to be thoroughly convinced, as you ascend it, that you are cleverer than everyone else.
1893
Bronze oinochoe: olpe (jug)
6th century BCE
There would not be so many false inventions and so many imaginary discoveries, if men did not let themselves be dazed by ardent desires to appear as inventors.
1674-1675
Neither reason nor study is needed for men who must submit their reason to the yoke of faith.
1766
It is impossible for the members of a society to recognize a rule of conduct as obligatory without reacting against any act that violates it.
1893
His simple and frugal life [...] caused him to be accused of avarice as soon as he came to the empire; and the glory he drew from his economy was regarded as outdated and out of season.
100-120 AD
Terracotta woman baking bread
ca. 600–480 BCE
Show me a single child of this turn of mind [...] whose depravity has not increased with age...
1796
Any useless law [...] does not remedy any evil, and creates a new one, by providing a new opportunity to fail [...] in the respect due to public authority.
1797-1798
Defining words would end a great many Disputes.
1689
...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.
Relief from casket
670 BCE - 330 CE
To understand all is to despise all.
1888
When one gets rich only slowly and through hard work, one can be frugal; but one squanders when money is easily reproduced [...].
1776
As they spare no one, so no one spares them; and were they at the height of elevation, the last of men will believe himself entitled to strike at them.
1636
If, by freely stating [...] the opinion I have of myself, I am to offend the judges, I would rather die.
4th century BC
Axehead
ca. 3200–2000 BCE