The philosophers who have examined the foundations of society have all felt the necessity of going back to the state of nature, but none of them has reached it.
1755
It rarely happens that those who live off philosophy live for philosophy.
1839
Religion, whether in relation to mysteries or to morals, depends entirely on divine revelation.
1623
[He] passes by, smiling at our quirks, without seeing our vices, our follies, without dwelling on our wickedness.
1926
Marble statuette of Aphrodite Anadyomene (rising)
1st century CE
It is [...] by becoming as concrete as possible that geometry has taken on the appearance of extreme abstraction.
17th century
A hero never appears greater than in circumstances capable of obscuring the glory of anyone other than himself.
1636
The feeling of suffering sours with time. One bears a misfortune when it arrives, but to carry it always is an intolerable torment.
c. 62 AD
Interest is indeed the least constant thing in the world. Today, it is useful for me to unite with you; tomorrow, the same reason will make me your enemy.
1893
A Spanish Garden
1871
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
The old logic claimed to lead us to truth through the power of the forms of reasoning. [...] The new logic [...] concerns itself only with the substance of reasoning, our ideas.
1805
The vanity of their erudition, leading them to judge before they understand, causes them to fall into gross errors of which other men are not capable.
1674-1675
He believes that he alone has a monopoly on wealth and power.
79 BC
Graziella
1878
learn [...] to know themselves, by seeing themselves placed between an infinity and a nothingness [...]. From which one can learn to value oneself at one's true worth, and to form reflections that are worth more than all the rest of geometry itself.
circa 1658
Considered up close, [the great men] were men whom love of their own interests made act against their conscience and nature; men whose acts are all worthy of the deepest contempt.
4th century BC
Churchmen are commonly reproached for their harshness; in them, it is an effect of the most sublime virtue; a good Christian must be perfectly insensitive.
1768
There is no philosopher in the world so great that he does not believe a million things on the faith of others, and who does not suppose many more truths than he establishes.
1835-1840
Limestone upper body of a woman
late 6th century BCE
The word of man is divine, in other words: it is an immense and incommensurable power like thought, of which it is the invisible body.
1841
While the Liberals, here as everywhere, let the opportunity slip out of their hands, the court reorganised its forces...
1851-1852
Knowing no one more capable of reassuring us, we have resolved to entrust this care to [the chosen person].
1498
Does one judge according to one's sensations [...]? The judgments are always right. Does one judge according to one's prejudices, that is to say, according to others? The judgments are always false.
1772
The Flight into Egypt
1470s
To attack passion at its root is to attack life at its root...
1888
It is by his own valor that a great general wages war, and not by the wickedness of others.
100-120 AD
[The Greek race] possesses both intelligence and courage. It knows how to maintain its independence and form very good governments, capable, if it were united in a single state, of conquering the universe.
c. 350 B.C.E.
Education makes good men, and good men do noble deeds.
c. 387 BC
Marble head of a girl from a small statue
3rd century BCE
I see very well [...] that my thought [...] needs clarification.
1696
The publisher is the man with the money, and that is quite enough.
1741-1784
One proceeds badly when one opposes a passion: for the opposition [...] stings and engages one further into sadness.
1580
It is clear that there is a great difference between sensation and thought.
1270
Cardinal Fernando Niño de Guevara (1541–1609)
ca. 1600
Invention is the sole proof of genius.
1746
Despite the weakening of imperial power [...], legislative authority still resided with the emperor, [...] when he was not dealing with overly powerful princes.
1753-1754
We do not call an action wrong unless we mean to imply that the person who has committed it ought to be punished in some way or other [...].
1861
The power and the right of the State diminish all the more as the State itself provides a greater number of citizens with reasons to associate in a common grievance.
1677
Leisure Time in an Elegant Setting
ca. 1663–65
Lying is the debasement and, as it were, the annihilation of human dignity.
1797-1798
We have tried to rebuild it, without claiming to explain it absolutely.
c. 1552-1553
If someone says they do not know how they think, one can reply that they also do not know how they are extended, nor how the solid parts of their body are united to make a whole.
1689
[...] as war removes all freedom from commerce, the surplus will cease to pass from one nation to another.
1776
Portrait of a Woman with Tapestry Work
1800
[Self-love] is not selfishness, for the living being is made to always act for its own sake.
c. 108 AD
What is this glory that swells your hearts [...]? An echo, a shadow, a dream, the shadow of a dream.
1742
A civilization founded on a spirituality of work would be the highest degree of man's rootedness in the universe, and therefore the opposite of our present state, which consists of an almost total uprootedness.
1943
The self touches the external world by its surface [...]. But as we dig below this surface, as the self becomes more itself, its states of consciousness also cease to be juxtaposed in order to interpenetrate [...].
1889
Madonna and Child
ca. 1480