It is easy to praise Providence [...], if one has within them these two things: the capacity to understand what happens to each person, and a grateful heart.
c. 108 AD
If the necessary being is not, there is no possible being.
Late 17th - early 18th century
We cannot judge whether a man is faithful or not, except by his works.
1670
All animals are perpetually at war; each species is born to devour another.
1764
The Madonna of Humility, the Annunciation, the Nativity, and the Pietà
ca. 1465
Perpetual peace (the ultimate goal of the whole law of nations) is therefore undoubtedly an impracticable idea. But the political principles which aim at it [...] are not.
1797
It takes great qualities to make a hero.
1636
What is the use of endlessly repeating that it is beautiful to die for one's country? An aphorism does not make a hero.
1758
Ignorance is the mother of devotion, a proverbial maxim, but one confirmed by experience.
1757
Terracotta warriors
6th century BCE(?)
Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth [...], and in no other way can a human being have the rational assurance of being right.
1859
The great cities are teeming with people whom misery has made industrious.
1748
Death and life, [...] success and failure, poverty and wealth [...] these are the alternating vicissitudes of which fate is made. One must disregard these things; do not let them penetrate the palace of the mind.
4th century BC
[...] the harsher a law is, the less it is applied.
1926
Marble capital and finial in the form of a sphinx
ca. 530 BCE
The other, who sought no trouble, had to take up arms for his own safety against those who would not let him live in peace.
100-120 AD
The mystery of prayer.
1841
Each part of the air contains the entire visible object: now this cannot be explained by a corporeal affection, but by higher laws, proper to the soul [...].
c. 253-270 AD
Those who, from the moment they see nothing but the sky and the sea, imagine that there is no more land beyond their horizon, [are] very cowardly navigators.
1623
Amulet
7000 BCE - 330 CE
Let the servant of Jesus Christ love him with a selfless love, so that the reward for devotion to his service may be to be with him.
1263-1264
One must ascertain the inner dispositions, since the face is an unreliable guarantor. The human heart has deep folds.
circa 65 AD
Part of the labor contained in the commodity is paid labor, the other is unpaid labor.
1865
Since all discourse is the manifestation of our ideas, it is the perfect knowledge of these ideas that alone can lead us to discover the true organization of discourse, and completely unveil the secret mechanism of its composition.
1803
Portrait of a Woman
1560
The conviction of certainty [...] is a sure testimony of madness and extreme uncertainty.
1674-1675
Some fall asleep on the authority of prejudices and even admit contradictory ones, for want of going to the point where they contradict each other.
1746
The necessity of lighting the streets for a longer period of time was soon felt.
1662
This so-called virtue [humility] is only fit to degrade man, to debase him in his own eyes, to stifle in him all energy and all desire to be useful to society.
1766
The Nymph of Fontainebleau
1550
A communication of thought occurs that neither silence nor pretense can prevent.
1836
Philosophy [...] is not a completed science, it is a science in the making; it is not organized.
c. 350 BC
To understand all is to despise all.
1888
Not having a notion of spiritual substance no more authorizes us to deny the existence of spirits, than to deny for the same reason the existence of bodies.
1689
Lieutenant Colonel Paul Pechell (1724–1800)
1747
Our intelligence has become so coarse that we no longer even conceive that there can be authentic, rigorous certainty concerning incomprehensible mysteries.
1951
We only judge situations because we see objects in a place where they occupy a determined space; and we only judge movement because we see them change situation.
1754
Therefore, what you are describing is not a part of virtue, but virtue as a whole.
c. 380 BC
There is a serious confusion here, whose causes and effects it would be interesting to explore in depth.
1922
Portrait of a Man
1537
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
Life is neither a pleasure nor a pain; it is a serious business which we are charged with, and which we must conduct and finish to our honor.
1864-1866
Men love to change their master in the hope of improving their lot; but [...] experience shows them that they were mistaken and have only worsened their situation.
1513
[With] people one believes to be damned; to love them would be to hate God who punishes them.
1762
Garden of the Painter at Saint Clair
1908
April, the grace, and the smile [...], the scent and the sweet breath.
1546/1563
It is more natural to look for the corruptor in the one who fears being condemned, than in the one who fears seeing the other acquitted.
66 BC
Social life, wherever it is normal, is spontaneous: and if it is abnormal, it cannot last.
1893
Each one runs enough risks for himself without also running them for another.
1580
Pendant in the form of a fish
3900 BCE - 100 CE