It is characteristic of our mind to form general propositions of knowledge from particular ones.
17th century
Malice is a shade of fury and affectation is a beginning of frenzy.
1772
The emancipation of the oppressed class thus necessarily implies the creation of a new society.
1847
The danger for the artist, for the man of genius [...] the danger lies in woman: loving women are their ruin.
1888
Still Life with Flowers and Fruit
1866
Nothing prevents a thing which does not have in its nature the reason for another thing, from nevertheless being able to have it from another cause.
1270
[The Senate] always made a sound judgment of things; it always regarded the least disastrous course of action as the best.
1513-1519
A divided city is half taken.
c. 1552-1553
We must always start from the impressions we receive, that is to say, from the facts; examining them with attention so as to see in them nothing but what is there [...].
1817
Marble fragments of a statue of the emperor Caracalla
ca. 217–230 CE
The agreement of all phenomena of different substances comes only from the fact that they are all productions of the same cause, namely God.
1686
Reason is nothing other than a particle of the divine spirit immersed in the human body.
63-64 AD
Cities that are neither able to subsist on their own, nor to inspire fear in others, do not truly belong to themselves; they are under the law of others.
1677
Servitude debases men to the point of making itself loved.
1747
Dr. Brian Walton (born about 1600, died 1661)
1657
[Self-knowledge] is the only indispensable knowledge, as it is also the most difficult to secure. In vain will one hope to acquire any other, as long as one is ignorant of what is noblest in oneself [...].
1st Century A.D.
It is perhaps no less difficult to define than it is rare to possess a gift of this nature [the fiery spirit].
1636
If a man is willing to remain at his post and to defend himself against the enemy without running away, you may be sure that he is a man of courage.
c. 380 BC
If one day we were to succeed in verifying the accuracy of our conjectures by direct observation, what certainty our theory would acquire [...], and how plausible our entire system would become [...]!
1755
Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints
ca. 1504
Disorders of the imagination are extremely contagious, and [...] slip and spread into most minds with great ease.
1674-1675
Why? It is because our sensibility is no longer touched by architecture. It still interests us; it no longer moves us.
1926
Oh! how little one must have had to think, to have been able to read so much!
1905
[...] even attachment to parents is against pure nature, since it causes pleasure or sorrow.
4th century BC
Arrowhead
ca. 480–330 BCE
Any mediating being between God and the universe is therefore a being of the imagination.
1841
A mind that occupies itself night and day with meditations attains that knowledge so recommended by the oracle of Delphi: self-knowledge.
45 BC
One does not understand a particular truth when one has not perceived the relationships it may have with others.
1882
Strength is likewise destroyed, both when one does too much exercise, and when one does not do enough.
4th century BC
Wedding Procession
1841
There is nothing that so loves the unkempt and the disheveled as the thing imagined.
1773
Among the things we do, some are done on principle, others by circumstance, others by calculation, others out of deference, others out of bias.
c. 108 AD
Reason results from all the well-conducted operations of the soul.
1746
I had believed in my youth that Newton had made his fortune through his extreme merit. [...] Not at all.
1764
Portrait of a Man
1703
If I wish to laugh at a fool, I need not look far; I laugh at myself.
1580
We are always more affected by what concerns us.
1643-1662
Happiness taken in its full extent is the greatest pleasure of which we are capable [...].
1689
The more terrible the god, the more docile and submissive we are to his ministers.
1757
Gamepiece with a Dead Heron
1695
We see [...] how false the theory is that posits egoism as the starting point of humanity, and altruism, on the contrary, as a recent conquest.
1893
The fatal tendency of the human race to set aside a thing as soon as it is no longer questioned has caused half of its errors.
1859
Why democratic peoples show a more ardent and enduring love for equality than for liberty.
1835-1840
the nation having for a maxim, that the King is a debtor only to those who multiply his subjects.
1627
Bronze handle from a cista (toiletry box)
4th century BCE
Instead of 'Political sovereignty resides in the nation,' I would propose 'Legitimacy is constituted by the free consent of the people to all the authorities to which they are subject.'
1957
What is not good is to abandon the Creator to live according to the created good, whether one wants to live according to the flesh, or according to the soul, or according to the whole man.
c. 253-270 AD
There are two kinds of dependence: that on things, which is from nature; that on men, which is from society. Dependence on things [...] does not harm freedom, and does not breed vices.
1762
Envy [...] forbids admiring a contemporary [...]. To humiliate the living, what praise is lavished on the dead!
1772
Cymbal
7000 BCE - 330 CE