This is the final fate of the illustrious, even of the saints [...]. They do not escape it; they are fodder for human glory: it is their last martyrdom.
1670
Today, religion has taken the place of philosophy; it keeps an eye on all our conduct: it has the right to regulate our actions, our words, even our thoughts and our inclinations.
1751
Idealism and materialism, as abstract and one-sided moments, share the same ground, although they are in direct opposition.
1841
You are mistaken, [...] it is a new enemy I have put to death.
1512-1527
Hoof, cow
7000 BCE - 330 CE
It seems to me that something is telling me to leave. As I am quite sure that it is not sensibility, I abandon myself to it.
1942
Considered in themselves, deep conscious states have no relation to quantity; they are pure quality; they intermingle in such a way that one cannot say whether they are one or several [...].
1889
The shock of adversity does not alter a courageous soul: it remains unshakable, it stamps its own color upon events.
c. 64 AD
[Our philosophy] does not flatter the human mind by marrying the prejudices with which it is filled, [...] and it can only be grasped through its effects and its utility.
1620
The Return of the Cattle
ca. 1773–75
Since our thoughts are but consequences of the nature of our soul [...], it is useless to ask for the influence of another particular substance, besides the fact that this influence is absolutely inexplicable.
1686
I had to make it a law for myself to establish nothing that was not indisputable, and that everyone could not, with the slightest reflection, perceive in themselves.
1746
[...] It is without doubt a similar affectation of wanting to know more than we can understand that makes so much noise and causes so many vain disputes in the World.
1689
Democracy loosens social ties, but it tightens natural ones. It brings relatives closer together at the same time as it separates citizens.
1835-1840
Marble two-sided relief
1st century CE
It is when human intelligence is at the end of its resources and declares its powerlessness that the help of God arrives.
1263-1264
It is impossible to conceive a high opinion of the talent of a dishonest man.
1741-1784
Desire and satiety cause us equal pain both before and after pleasure.
1580
May he whose integrity was never in doubt not see, at sixty, his name condemned to dishonor.
81 BC
Terracotta statuette of a draped woman
2nd century BCE
Prosperity [...] is but a fleeting state: it is a kind of game [...] where the most skillful is the one who knows when to quit while they're ahead.
1636
Love breathes [...] a dormant and covered fire that winter had concealed within our veins.
1546/1563
Who then could you reasonably consider more just than a man who has adapted to his present fortune, to the point of never needing what belongs to others?
4th century BC
For what is freedom? It is to have the will to take personal responsibility, it is to tenaciously maintain the distances that separate us [...].
1888
Mother and Child by the Sea
1830
Human wickedness, though difficult to cure, is neither so savage nor so brutal that it cannot eventually yield [...] to oft-repeated kindnesses.
100-120 AD
Being always away from home, they do not notice the disorders that occur there; they think they are well, because they do not feel themselves.
1674-1675
Patience is the art of hoping.
1747
Here below, [...] it is not the soul, the inner man, but his shadow, the outer man, who gives himself over to lamentations and groans [...]. The truly serious man is serious only about truly serious matters.
c. 253-270 AD
Limestone inscribed block
3900 BCE - 100 CE
[We are] firmly convinced [...] that there must be a logical relationship between things and beings.
1926
Magnificence is the mean between ostentation and pettiness.
4th century BC
Intolerance and the spirit of persecution are of the essence of any sect that has Christianity as its basis.
1766
There are hearts that are made for certain genres [...].
1737-1771
Upper right corner of a marble sarcophagus: head of a Black African and a maenad
1st quarter of the 3rd century CE
From one point of view [...] this world exists absolutely only as representation; from another point of view, it exists only as will.
1819
The word is also an image, an eminently abstract image; indeed, by pronouncing the name of a thing, one imagines one knows the thing itself.
1841
The principle of the modern movement in morals and politics is that conduct, and conduct alone, gives the right to respect; [...] that merit, not birth, is the only legitimate title to the exercise of power.
1869
It cannot happen, without great damage to concord, that men and women govern equally.
1677
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1815
Instead of making us find the proofs, they are dictated to us; [...] the master reasons for us, and exercises only our memory.
1762
The common folk say very well that one cannot do two things at once.
c. 108 AD
It seems [...] more in conformity with human nature to base the expectation of another life on the sentiments of a well-ordered soul, than to base one's conduct on the hope of another life.
1766
It is with words that we reason about ideas [...]. What we call reasoning is to make judgments that follow from the first ones.
1805
Bronze horse bit
8th–7th century BCE
[Repetitions] have been avoided, as much as it was possible to do so without altering or mutilating the text.
1764
The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest people of past centuries who were their authors.
1637
[The beautiful one], knowing she is beautiful, strikes a pose, which makes us deliberately ignore her beauty; while [the ugly one], knowing she is ugly, effaces herself, which makes us deliberately ignore her ugliness.
4th century BC
Spontaneously, man was not inclined to submit to political authority, to respect moral discipline, to devote himself, or to sacrifice himself.
1922
Limestone statue of a male votary holding a bird in the left hand
ca 500–450 BCE