If I had vanquished my adversary, I would have had many others to vanquish; if I had succumbed, an infinity of good people would have perished [...].
September 57 BC
It is in times of corruption that laws multiply. They are made continuously, because the need for them is continuously felt, and it seems they are always made in vain.
1776
One is necessary, one is a piece of destiny, one belongs to the whole, one is in the whole—there is nothing which could judge, measure, compare, or condemn our being [...].
1888
The oldest and best-known evil is always more bearable than a new and untried one.
1580
The Outer Harbor of Brest
1773
The elements [...] resemble matter, whereas it is the soul or the form that unites them and makes them a whole.
384–322 BC
The art [...] that no one can mark the limits of your capacity will remain [...] fruitless if you do not add to it the art of hiding the affections of your heart.
1636
What is more rational than to see those who have worked for something have more of that thing for which they have worked?
c. 108 AD
Do you think one thinks in the least of being cured, when one elevates one's infirmities into virtues?
63-64 AD
Marble fragment of a hero relief
late 5th century BCE
It seems to me rigorously proven that many judgments had to be made before a single articulated sign was created.
1801
Sickness is the natural state of the Christian.
1670
A moment of error has changed everything.
1761
It is much better to be entirely delivered from a false hope than to be uselessly sustained by it.
1643-1649
Tobias Curing His Father's Blindness
1630–35
Error in itself harms neither piety nor friendship.
1686
Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt. (Fate leads the willing, and drags the unwilling.)
1836
[David] was rebellious, lecherous, an adulterer, a murderer, etc., but he was very devout and very submissive to the Priests, which earned him the name of a man after God's own heart.
1768
The fear of the ultimate punishment pushed him [...] to great undertakings.
100-120 AD
Marble torso of a seated man
1st or 2nd century CE
The burdens of monarchy derive not so much from its public expenditures as from its secret ones.
1677
Man, without wanting to, without knowing it, creates God in his human image: later this created God creates, wanting to, knowing it, the universe and man.
1841
His renown [...] has always been that of a hero who had the misfortune of taking too much revenge for an injustice done to him.
1769
To direct our thought towards action [...] that is what our brain is for. But in doing so, it channels, and thereby also limits, the life of the mind.
1919
Gamepiece with a Dead Heron
1695
Old fool [...] who eats without ploughing and dresses without spinning. You who claim that merely opening your lips [...] is enough to establish the distinction between good and evil.
4th century BC
This firm foundation [of utilitarian morality] is that of the social feelings of mankind; the desire to be in unity with our fellow creatures.
1861
Although [...] all men are equal, [...] age or virtue may give some superiority. [...] However, all this agrees very well with that equality in respect to the dominion of one over another.
1690
If we do not all receive the punishment for our sins here below, let us not place our trust in this impunity, for it foretells for us much more terrible punishments in the future life.
1263-1264
Two gutti from a group of fragments from the Temple of Apollo at Phigaleia (Bassae)
5th century BCE
The will is but a desire that is not fought, that has its object in its power, or at least believes it has [...].
1746
The stars do not produce [...] poverty and wealth, health and sickness, beauty and ugliness, vices and virtues.
c. 253-270 AD
Pain, like joy, is but a way of feeling, independent of the logical causes that the common person attributes to our grimaces or our smiles.
1926
Treason [...] shall consist only in taking up arms against [the country] or in joining its enemies by giving them aid and comfort.
1835-1840
Portrait of a Child
1790
My hand is not my head [...]. It contains, so to speak, an infinity of nothings, the nothings of all that it is not.
1707
It must be believed that systems and hypotheses have perverted and corrupted our understanding, since a theory so simple and natural could for so long escape the inquiries of men.
1751
Perhaps [...] it is out of benevolence that the god grants me [...] to end my life not only at the most suitable time, but in the least painful way.
4th century BC
The only way to advance the sciences is to separate them well, to first take each one apart as a whole, and only then to try to consider them in their union.
1793
Portrait of a Man
1795
When getting to the bottom of things, there is no true dignity that does not have a spiritual root and consequently a supernatural one.
1943
It is because I had too much that I squandered. The peaceful stream flows endlessly. The impetuous torrent [...] leaves its bed dry.
1796
Let us call one of these two paths or methods 'anticipations of the mind,' and the other, 'interpretation of nature'.
1620
A social fact can only be called normal for a given social species, in relation to a given phase of its development.
1895
Group of 3 worked obsidian fragments and a raw obsidian lump
5th millennium or later
[Their] weakness prevents them from making a decision as soon as there is the slightest doubt.
1513-1519
[Speech is forbidden] for fear that their favorites who abuse their power might thereby be known and punished.
1574
Who doubts that the morals and amusements of the capital contribute to this effect [of attracting money]?
1772
The working classes, [...] barely awakening, not to a knowledge, but to a mere instinct of their social position and their own line of political conduct, could only make themselves heard by means of noisy demonstrations.
1851-1852
Fragmentary marble inscription
ca. 425–424 BCE