What makes attention tiring is the motive that determines us to it. [...] Is it the hope of pleasure? Attention then becomes a pleasure in itself.
1758
A people that would never misuse the government would not misuse independence either; a people that would always govern well would not need to be governed.
1762
May will boast of its coolness, its ripe fruits, and its fertile dew.
1546/1563
The Greeks will forever remain our masters because of that grandiose and objective naivety which makes everything shine in its nakedness, in the pure light of its nature [...].
1841
Painted limestone funerary slab with a soldier taking a kantharos from his attendant
2nd half of 3rd century BCE
Only that which is just is legitimate. Crime and lies never are.
1940
The homage and insults of the crowd must be met with the same contempt: let us not be afflicted by the latter, nor congratulate ourselves for the former.
c. 55
The greatest, most glorious masterpiece of man is to live appropriately.
1580
The honest man of the new generation is distinguished [...] by the diligence he applies to detaching himself from what we would today call the social self, to placing himself above all professional vanity.
1663
Head of a Black African youth
7000 BCE - 30 BCE
What makes the tragedy of my current destiny is that my boldest undertakings must serve to make me a living.
1896
Imagine a society of saints, an exemplary and perfect cloister. Crimes properly so called will there be unknown; but faults which appear venial to the layman will create there the same scandal as the ordinary offense.
1895
If one sometimes encounters, in criminal matters, facts impenetrable to human sagacity, the mystery surrounding them is a warning that they should be reserved for the judgment of God.
1926
The spectator of a dramatic work is, in a way, caught off guard by the impression suggested to him. He does not have time to question his memory [...]; he yields to it before knowing it.
1835-1840
Portrait of a Child
1790
We therefore never do anything but perceive, judge, and will.
1817
No greater affinity can be imagined than that between beauty and love.
c. 253-270 AD
The errors [of the human mind] are corrigible. It is capable of rectifying its mistakes by discussion and experience. Not by experience alone: discussion is necessary to show how experience should be interpreted.
1859
[...] not knowing that all that happened in my father's castle was a matter of custom.
1759
Terracotta statuette of an actor
late 5th–early 4th century BCE
Love, love is a fool.
1775-1784
The splendor of true glory, the majesty of a great soul [...] appear to be a gift of virtue; the rest is but a loan from fortune.
46 BC
The flaw of the French is to limit the arts by dint of wanting to make them simple. By this, they sometimes deprive themselves of the best, only to keep the good.
1746
Non-animal is said of fewer things than non-man, because non-animal is said of all beings except animals, [while] non-man is said of all beings and animals, except for man.
c. 1270
Limestone lower left leg
4th or 3rd century BCE ?
Others do not so much impress upon things the image of their mind as that of their passions, never losing sight of the interest of their party.
1623
The food that would satisfy a dwarf [...] would only whet the appetite of a giant.
1636
Limitations or privations result from the original imperfection of creatures, which limits their receptivity.
1710
One must suffer the enlightened and impartial criticisms made of the most estimable men or works [...].
1746
Marble grave relief with two portrait busts
ca. 13 BCE–5 CE
The idea that the entire world, including living beings, is governed by pure mathematics is but an a priori view of the mind [...].
1919
The injury is the same, the crime is equal, whether it is committed by a man wearing a crown, or by a man of naught.
1690
Considering how many diverse opinions there can be on the same subject, [...] while it is impossible for more than one to be true, I held as almost false everything that was merely probable.
1637
If you ask me what is best in the world, what shall I name? [...] Our faculty of judgment and will, when it is on the right path.
c. 108 AD
Limestone funerary stele of a boy
3900 BCE - 100 CE
When one passes away with a healthy body and a soul full of tenderness, how could one not be an object of regret?
4th century BC
Man is extremely subject to error; the illusions of his senses, the visions of his imagination, and the abstractions of his mind deceive him at every moment.
1674-1675
[...] men, in seeking to shield themselves from fear, immediately begin to make themselves feared.
1513-1519
Religious zeal = fanaticism.
1830-1831
Appliqué in the form of a head
5th–4th century BCE
If it is possible for a thing to be affected [...] by its like, then it could also affect itself. [...] from this it would follow that nothing in the world would be imperishable or immovable.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Standing in his field of global knowledge, the Sage despises the knowledge of details, all convention, all affection, all art.
4th century BC
We, animal creatures, are made human only by culture.
1777
Philosophy has but few true followers; and even over them it has only a very weak and very limited authority.
1742
The Love Song
1868–77
He wished to exercise power without arousing envy.
100-120 AD
When a people perishes, degenerates physiologically, vices and luxury [...] are the consequence.
1888
All these grand words were forged only to dazzle or intimidate the common people.
17th century
If Christians, fortunately, were not inconsistent [...], no Christian society could subsist, and the nations enlightened by the Gospel would return to a savage state.
1766
Marble head of Herakles
1st or 2nd century CE