[...] the degree which combination has reached in a country clearly marks the rank it occupies in the hierarchy of the world market.
1847
Liberty, substituted for monopoly, [...] makes establishments flourish.
1770
It is the most silent words that bring the storm. Thoughts that come on doves' feet guide the world.
1883-1885
If there is an absolute government, it is that which is in the hands of the entire multitude.
1677
Jacques-Louis Leblanc (1774–1846)
1823
There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: to find that limit [...] is as indispensable [...] as protection against political despotism.
1859
We need a collective life which, while surrounding each human being with warmth, leaves space and silence around them.
1957
The marvelous in nature, the divine breath that stirs and penetrates it, is the law that is within it.
1842-1845
[...] how can it be that Christians continue to sin, as if they had not been redeemed [...]? From which we see that [this mystery] is impenetrable to reason, its effectiveness disproven by experience.
1766
Standing male figurine
ca. 750–600 BCE
The body is at its peak strength from the age of thirty to thirty-five, and the soul around the age of forty-nine.
329-323 BC
I see men [...] spending almost all [their time], which cannot suffice for the essential, on the superfluous.
63-64 AD
As the principle of the division of labor receives a more complete application... art progresses, the artisan regresses.
1893
...it is not so much the theory, as the practice, that is difficult in this matter.
1643-1649
Marble head of a woman wearing diadem and veil
425–400 BCE
All our judgments are at first mere judgments of perception, valid only for ourselves [...] it is only afterward that we give them a new relation, a relation to an object.
1783
This cruel madness, of condemning to the flames for a crime that is impossible to commit, was not peculiar to France.
1769
...it is as ridiculous to praise oneself as to blame oneself.
100-120 AD
A bizarre fantasy makes you sacrifice all true pleasures to this vain smoke [glory], a worthy reward for its frivolity.
1742
Two Children Teasing a Cat
1587
Indiscretion or gallantry = adultery.
1830-1831
The food that would satisfy a dwarf [...] would only whet the appetite of a giant.
1636
Montaigne's younger brother [...] later married La Boétie's stepdaughter.
c. 1552-1553
A government, however strong, can hardly escape the consequences of a principle, once it has admitted that principle itself as the foundation of the public law that is to govern it.
1835-1840
Raising the Wind
1812
One needs [...] such strong reasons to live, that none are needed to die.
1926
Everyone claims to love virtue for its own sake. This phrase is on everyone's lips, and in no one's heart.
1772
The greatest proof of wisdom that those with absolute power can show is to submit to the laws and to rely on the counsel of others.
1518-1527
What compelled me to this thought was the weak foundation I saw for the widely accepted maxim that Nature abhors a vacuum, which is supported only by experiments, most of which are very false [...].
1647
The "Kearsarge" at Boulogne
1864
To say that a man gives himself gratuitously is to say an absurd and inconceivable thing; such an act is illegitimate and null, for the sole reason that he who does it is not in his right mind.
1762
Do not compound the son's grief with the father's tears, nor the father's sadness with the son's tears.
59 BC
This universe is one animal, which contains within itself all animals. There is in it one soul, which spreads throughout all its parts.
c. 253-270 AD
Where, in fact, in practice do you hold virtue to be equal and even superior to everything else! Show me a Stoic, if you have one.
c. 108 AD
Painted limestone funerary slab with a soldier taking a kantharos from his attendant
2nd half of 3rd century BCE
To desire is therefore the most pressing of all our needs; [...] we no longer live except to desire and only as long as we desire.
1755
Any prayer whose object is contrary to the interests of our salvation is not made in the name of the Savior [...].
1263-1264
It takes but a word, a gesture from them [princes] [...] to make science [...] pass for low pedantry; recklessness [...] for greatness of courage; and impiety [...] for strength and freedom of mind.
1674-1675
When I write, I make use of neither books nor the memories I have of them, for fear that they might influence my style of writing [...].
1580
Bronze statuette of a bull
7th century BCE
Justice is the feeling of a soul in love with order, and which is content with its own.
1746
When a certain number of people have agreed [...] to form a community [...], they make up a single political body, in which the majority has the right to decide and to act.
1690
The superior man considers worries to be handcuffs and shackles.
4th century BC
To live in the pure present [...] is the characteristic of a lower animal: the man who proceeds thus is an impulsive one. But he who lives in the past for the pleasure of living there [...] is hardly better adapted to action: a dreamer.
1896
The Sacrifice of Polyxena
1630
To add or subtract is not to unite or separate two beings in general [...]. It is to unite or separate them solely and specifically in relation to quantity.
1805
Others, on the contrary, go running after the most minute details, which have no influence on the substance of actions.
1623
One could not account for the laws of nature without supposing an intelligent cause.
1697
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
c. 375 BC
Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh: An Allegory of the Dinteville Family
1537