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Dead Smart People

When you're tired of listening to living idiots.

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With all our flaws we govern men [...] You have reason, and we have charms.

1775-1784

It is much more difficult to find important truths [...] than to find the demonstration of truths that another has discovered.

1704

What are the flaws you notice in the philosophy of Descartes and Bacon, and why do you think it can be overthrown and replaced with something better?

1661-1676

You do not think that you are reading; you believe that these are things happening before your very eyes.

45 BC

Cypriot artist

Fragment of a limestone naiskos (?)

Fragment of a limestone naiskos (?)

ca. 5th century BCE

God is personality, and at the same time he is impersonality, universality. God is therefore personified nonsense.

1841

In politics, the organization of parties is merely the means of relieving ourselves of the trouble of thinking.

1926

As for me, I will take the safest course [...] and will not make use of it.

1643-1649

A sentient being who knew only their own existence [...] could have the idea of duration; it would be sufficient for them to be endowed with memory.

1817

Benjamin-Constant (Jean-Joseph-Benjamin Constant)

Scene in a Harem (Un Envoi de Serbie)

Scene in a Harem (Un Envoi de Serbie)

1876

One becomes afraid to read after realizing the enormity of the falsehoods [...] shamelessly displayed, even in the books of the most reputable authors.

1943

Laziness is natural to man; [...] he constantly gravitates towards rest, as bodies do towards a center.

1758

Marriage is the only real servitude recognized by our laws. There are no longer any slaves by law except for the mistress of each house.

1869

Montaigne is slightly mistaken...

c. 1552-1553

Roman Artist

Marble statue of Tyche-Fortuna restored with the portrait head of a woman

Marble statue of Tyche-Fortuna restored with the portrait head of a woman

1st or 2nd century CE

To conceal difficulties, even to treat them as impieties in order to discredit them, is a wretched expedient devoid of all value.

1793

[A badly composed epic, like] the Little Iliad, [provides the subject] for eight [tragedies], and even more.

c. 335 BC

It is a matter [...] of establishing degrees of certainty, of supporting the senses [...], but rejecting almost all the product of the first operations of the mind that immediately follow sensations.

1620

Between popular poetry and perfect poetry, we have mediocre poetry, which is disdained, unhonored, and worthless.

1580

Roman Artist

Marble fragments of a statue of the emperor Caracalla

Marble fragments of a statue of the emperor Caracalla

ca. 217–230 CE

We have failed in our inquiry and have not found what courage is.

c. 380 BC

It seems that this new morality has made men weaker, and has delivered the world to audacious scoundrels.

1513-1519

Far from feasting on acquired glory, [a great heart] forgets it to always seek a new one.

1636

Nations, like men, need time to learn, whatever their intelligence and their efforts.

1835-1840

Italian (Venetian) Painter

Madonna and Child

Madonna and Child

1425

Those who imagine things strongly, express them with great force, and persuade all those who are convinced more by the air and by the sensible impression than by the force of reasons.

1674-1675

The democrat [...] imagines himself elevated above class antagonism. The democrats concede that a privileged class confronts them, but they, along with all the rest of the nation, constitute the people.

1851/1852

Only he who transforms himself remains my kinsman.

1886

The censure of the wicked is an approval of our life; it is a clear sign that we are beginning to have some justice when we begin to displease those who do not please God.

1263-1264

Jacob de Wit

Allegory of the Arts

Allegory of the Arts

1742

One came to command by favor of his reputation [...], the other arrived there, despised because of his previous position.

100-120 AD

The contagiousness [of religious forces] [...] stems from the social origins of the notion of the sacred.

1912

These words, slave and right, are contradictory; they are mutually exclusive.

1762

It is always in spite of itself that a soul is deprived of the truth. The error appeared to it as a truth. That is all.

c. 108 AD

Giovanni Boldini

The Dispatch-Bearer

The Dispatch-Bearer

?1879

'But I wanted to live and experience no discomfort!' Such a cowardly wish is not worthy of a man.

63-64 AD

Despair is the greatest of our errors.

1746

As one of their main dogmas was poverty [...], they were exterminated by iron and by flames.

1769

Thus, revelation itself will prove the authority of revelation.

1766

Greek Artist, Cypriot

Arrowhead

Arrowhead

ca. 480–330 BCE

[An] absurd exemption [...] is naturally explained among peoples of barbaric origin.

1776

There are acts that are weak and obscure, others hidden, others powerful that radiate far.

c. 253-270 AD

Superior knowledge [...] springs from his eyes and penetrates with his gaze; words could not express it.

4th century BC

According to [some], benevolence is but hypocrisy, friendship a cheat, public spirit a farce, fidelity a snare to betray trust.

1751

Unknown Artist

Hoof, cow

Hoof, cow

7000 BCE - 330 CE

By this means [man] no more increases his knowledge than he increases his riches who, taking a bag of counters [...] names one a Crown, another a Pound [...] without however being richer by a mite.

1689

The course of an individual's life, however complicated it may appear, forms an orderly whole, having its determined tendency and its meaningful significance, just like the most carefully composed epic.

1836

To make the movement of the operation simpler, it was necessary for the machine to be built with a more complex movement.

1642-1645

The recurrence of the comic is endless, because we love to laugh and any pretext will do.

1900

Greek Artist

Limestone head of a girl

Limestone head of a girl

3rd century BCE