That this horror or reluctance which all bodies have is not greater for admitting a large void than a small one.
1647
When society is brought to intervene, it is not to reconcile individual interests; [...] it applies the general and traditional rules of law to the specific case.
1893
The greatest number of men [...] run after a few water bubbles, without taking the trouble to watch out for the trapdoors that cause their companions to fall one after the other, next to them, into the abyss [...].
1760
The most useful books are those of which the readers themselves make half.
1764
The Two Central Figures in "Derby Day"
1860
It often happens that we are esteemed in proportion as we esteem ourselves.
1746
Men can regard astronomy, chemistry, and almost all other sciences as diversions [...], but they must not [...] prefer them to the science of man.
1674-1675
Following wealth, arbitrary power, gradually introducing itself among a people, will corrupt their morals and debase them.
1772
A religion that prides itself on being supernatural must seek to denature man: [...] it forbids him to love himself; it orders him to hate pleasures and to cherish pain.
1766
A Meadow Bordered by Trees
ca. 1845–60
The weakest of all souls are those whose will [...] allows itself to be continually carried away by the present passions, which [...] put the soul in the most deplorable state it can be.
1649
The heart of the Sage, perfectly calm, is like a mirror, reflecting heaven and earth, all beings.
4th century BC
The principle which determines the development of [the mind's] faculties is simple; Sensations themselves contain it.
1754
This true middle ground [...] is that all natural phenomena could be explained mechanically, if we understood them enough; but that the very principles of Mechanics [...] depend on more sublime principles [...].
1697
Copper alloy spearhead
ca. 2500–2000 BCE
A great citizen must always be ready to combat anything that could bring turmoil to the State.
54-51 BC
These swallows that go [...] are the messengers of spring.
1546/1563
What the sword has killed, no sun sees again.
1968
Do not believe that these maxims belong to [a single philosopher]: they belong to everyone.
63-64 AD
Standing female figurine
ca. 600–480 BCE
[...] heroism [...] receives a mortal blow only when [its] weaknesses are declared.
1636
To say the same of a whole people is to suppose a people of madmen: madness creates no right.
1762
Men can and should correct their palate, and acquire a taste for things that do not suit it [...].
1689
At the sound of arms the laws fall silent, and, as men return to their depraved inclinations, the fields are ravaged and the cities overturned.
1620
Portrait of a Young Boy
1591
For, as we know all too well, a cubic line of desire weighs more than a cubic inch of knowledge.
1840
Twice already I have tried to prepare a defense, and my daimon has opposed it.
4th century BC
Goodness finds a thousand obstacles in large cities, where there is always a multitude of men interested in perpetuating evil.
1759-1774
The love of glory and reputation is another spring of our machine, which gives much force to the moral sentiment; it is the passion of great souls.
1751
Bolt
7000 BCE - 330 CE
Do what you must, come what may [...] could that really be called a precept of submission?
c. 108 AD
Children's games are not games, and they must be judged as their most serious actions.
1580
The severe word of Kant is a manifesto in which Morality announces that it is free and independent of any kind of revelation, of any kind of God above or below [...].
1841
The gait of one's sentences indicates if the author is tired.
1879
Wall paintings on black ground: from the imperial villa at Boscotrecase
last decade of the 1st century BCE
If she does not give herself over to evil, at least she knows it; she has pure morals rather than a chaste mind.
1835-1840
Entire layers of the bourgeois class are thrown into the working class. Competition among workers therefore increases [...].
1849
It is not by walking that we draw near to Jesus Christ, but by believing; it is not by a movement of our body, but by the will of our heart.
1263-1264
Their goal [...] is to show the way, which is to yield delicately to one's passions.
1926
The Nativity
ca. 1433–34
It is thought to be a holy thing to have no confidence in reason and in one's own judgment [...]; but this is not piety, it is madness.
1670
It is [...] well-examined particular facts, and the just judgments we make of them, that are the principle of all truth [...].
1817
The ultimate sanction of all morality (external motives apart) is a subjective feeling in our own minds.
1861
A power aspiring only to empire and glory, and not to rest, cannot refuse such an enterprise.
1513-1519
The Serenade
ca. 1678–80
A great proof of [...] superiority is that, without having received any personal insult, he ran up against the wicked for the interest of others.
100-120 AD
Sensation has for its general condition that the universal animal be sympathetic to itself; without this, how could one thing partake in the power of another thing from which it is very distant?
c. 253-270 AD
The role of our body is to screen from consciousness everything that would be of no practical interest to us, everything that does not lend itself to our action.
1919
Feet are always in even numbers.
Mid-fourth century BC and 322 BC
Faience amulet of an animal-headed god
664–334 BCE