I am of the opinion that the best thing [...] is for all of us to seek out the best possible teacher together, first for ourselves, for we are in the greatest need of one.
c. 380 BC
The truth is that it is better not to forcibly unite under fantastic titles things as different from each other as sensibility, memory, judgment, and will.
1801
Another care must fill the course of my life; it is to [...] keep the friends I have tested in adversity.
September 57 BC
There is [...] a very great difference between teaching and persuading; the sign of persuasion is dispute; the sign of teaching is, no dispute.
1772
Gabbro mace head
ca. 2500–1900 BCE
What [...] color, race, religion, or nationality [...] are for some men, sex is for all women; it is a radical exclusion from almost all honorable occupations.
1869
While [superstitions] wage the most furious war against each other, we happily escape into the dark but tranquil regions of philosophy.
1757
All the money that must circulate [...] and be the price of all marketable goods, originally belongs to the [landowners].
1776
The cult really has the effect of periodically recreating a moral being on which we depend as it depends on us. And this being exists: it is society.
1912
Apple Blossoms
1873
Often the Americans call a laudable industry what we name the love of gain, and they see a certain faintness of heart in what we consider the moderation of desires.
1835-1840
As soon as a party has pushed the revolution far enough that it can no longer follow it, [...] it is set aside by its more audacious allies [...]. The revolution thus follows an ascending line.
1851/1852
The common talent of giving one's ignorance a scientific appearance consists in the superstitious person saying: Do you understand the true cause of magnetic force...?
1790
[...] praise the goodness of kings [...] and the submission of their subjects.
c. 1552-1553
The Organ Rehearsal
1885
In truth, my happiness and my freedom surge forth like a storm!
1883-1885
I would rather see my daughter dead than the wife of a tyrant.
100-120 AD
His opulence impoverishes him by multiplying his needs.
1796
The duties of men gathered in society, that is morality; the reciprocal interests of these societies, that is politics; their obligations towards God, that is religion.
1746
Marble female figure
3200–2700 BCE
No one [...] can relinquish the faculty of judgment.
1677
What does a superior mind matter, if the heart does not match it?
1636
[...] one must either try to uproot an abuse, at the risk of sudden ruin, or let it grow, and bow under the yoke of inevitable servitude.
1513-1519
[...] the mechanical necessity that determines matter [...] is an image of divine justice. Plato had preserved this thought. Our science has lost it, thus severing all ties with spiritual life.
1953
Circus Sideshow (Parade de cirque)
1887–88
The most dreadful thing about cruelty is its need to persevere; and the return to good is no longer open to it.
55-56 AD
[Some doctrines are] among those that can only be taught by word of mouth, and a written discourse on the matter would be as much or more useless and cumbersome.
1642-1645
It would be supremely absurd for the one who pursues a goal to achieve it less than the one who does not bother with it.
c. 108 AD
If there were a people of gods, they would govern themselves democratically. So perfect a government is not for men.
1762
Terracotta woman baking bread
ca. 600–480 BCE
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 state of Nature] is a state of perfect freedom, [...] without depending upon the will of any other man, they may do as they please [...] provided they keep within the bounds of the law of Nature.
1690
One hates the powerful, one does not despise them. It is not the anger of the giant that is disdained, but that of the pygmy.
1772
It is with extravagant zeal and powerless efforts that men gather to perform intellectual work, expecting everything [...] from the superiority of genius.
1620
Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh: An Allegory of the Dinteville Family
1537
The fortunes of war have deprived me of my hereditary states; [...] I resign myself to Providence...
1759
[Situation] does not admit of contrariety.
c. 1270
The proof is that several of these definitions are equally acceptable, even though they do not say the same thing.
1900
Why do not all beings have a soul [...]?
384–322 BC
Standing male figurine
ca. 750–600 BCE
Passion is the sudden, violent excitement of the will by a representation that penetrates from the outside and acquires the force of a motive.
1839
Disorder exists only because of order, lawlessness only because of the law, unreason only because of reason, because the order, law, and reason seen here below are only borrowed.
c. 253-270 AD
It is immutability that characterizes the Sage in the midst of the crowd.
4th century BC
There is nothing so unjust as the complaints of those who want to know everything and want to apply themselves to nothing. They [...] want to be moved always, and for their senses and passions to be incessantly flattered.
1674-1675
Two fulcra (headrest) attachments in the form of mule's heads
ca. late 3rd–1st century BCE
I believe that dreams often renew old thoughts in this way.
1704
They claimed to do without the vulgar reader, who did without them very easily.
1926
We owe justice to men, and grace and benignity to other creatures [...]. There is some intercourse between them and us, and some mutual obligation.
1580
I would never advise anyone to read [me], except those who would wish to [...] meditate seriously, and who can detach their minds from the commerce of the senses and [...] from all sorts of prejudices.
1641
Sunflowers
1887