Of all that is born from our free will, nothing depends on it more exclusively than affection and friendship.
1580
May will boast of its coolness, its ripe fruits, and its fertile dew.
1546/1563
The intellect is not always true.
384–322 BC
Science frees the mind, expands the senses and the heart; theology compresses and crushes them.
1842-1845
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1650
[...] as long as the phenomena are connected, it does not matter whether we call them dreams or not, since experience shows that we are not mistaken in the measures we take based on phenomena [...].
1704
The ostensive syllogism draws a true conclusion from two true premises; whereas the syllogism ad impossibile [...] from a false premise draws an obviously false conclusion.
c. 1270
Although their assumptions are almost all false and uncertain, nevertheless... [astronomers] do not fail to draw from them several very true and very certain pieces of knowledge.
17th century
[Some] are not far from believing that they form a separate species of mankind.
1835-1840
Bronze statuette of a bearded man
late 6th century BCE
The end of the world being near, I, for the remedy of my soul, [...] give such and such lands to such and such a convent.
1764
The course of time is but the distinction between the wanted and the possessed [...].
1890
A man who has never left his country usually imagines that the morals and customs of foreigners are contrary to reason because they are contrary to the custom of his own city [...].
1674-1675
The years that followed were spent by Marx founding the International Workingmen's Association and formulating the theories of historical-scientific socialism [...].
March 17, 1883
Limestone relief of a youth, from a funerary building
ca. 300 BCE
The idea of mediation is everywhere in Plato [...] always linked to the idea of imitation [...] and to the idea of suffering.
1953
To illustrate an idea is not to prove it.
1895
[Christian education] consists in making children contract from infancy the salutary habit of unreasoning, of believing everything they are told, [and] of hating all those who do not believe what they believe.
1768
There is no wicked man who could not be made good for something.
1762
Faience statuette of Aphrodite
334–30 BCE
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
To limit what God can do to what we can understand is to give an infinite scope to our comprehension, or to make God Himself finite.
1689
It is from this true and one world that the sensible world, which is not truly one, draws its existence: it is [...] multiple and divided into a plurality of parts that are separate from one another.
c. 253-270 AD
[I wanted] to show the uncertainty of all our judgments on the characters of men, and [...] that customs, fashion, and laws are what primarily determine matters of morality.
1751
The Story of Esther
1422
A passionate lover of his country, he was of a singular gentleness, except for a violent hatred against tyranny and wicked men.
100-120 AD
The limits we raise to circumscribe each science intercept the light and necessarily cast shadows. Let us remove the limits, and at once the shadows dissipate.
1768
It is a curious contradiction [...] that books of piety, like books of poetry, become more numerous as the world loses interest in both piety and poetry.
1926
Can he be called honest [...] who would gladly indulge in vice if he did not fear future punishment [...]?
1766
The Life and Miracles of Saint Godelieve
1475
[He] remained [...] dazed like a fish out of water.
1513-1527
[A heroic heart] wanted no middle ground between All or Nothing.
1636
There is more advantage [...] in raising suspicion with veiled words than in putting forward something that could be contested.
86-82 BC
Superior knowledge [...] springs from his eyes and penetrates with his gaze; words could not express it.
4th century BC
Cardinal Fernando Niño de Guevara (1541–1609)
ca. 1600
The thefts, murders, and accidents that occur daily [...] for lack of sufficient light in the streets.
1662
Where will I find these connections, if not in the study of myself and the knowledge of men [...]?
1746
In the body politic, as in the human body, there must be a soul, a spirit, that enlivens it and sets it in motion.
1772
When I have hurt even a stranger, my pain begins when theirs ceases.
1765-1769
Portrait of a Young Boy
1636
Each person has only the ideas they have made for themselves, and no one can think for another.
1801
Philosophers [...] follow virtue not because it is the law, but out of love and because it is in itself lovable.
1661-1676
That no use can be made of them is perhaps the very essence of greatness.
1888
If truly moral reasons against suicide exist, they must be sought at a depth that the probe of common morality cannot reach.
1840
Limestone statuette of a seated Zeus Ammon
4th century BCE
What person is more admirable than one who knows how to command themself, who is their own master?
1st century AD
There are those who everywhere mix in [...] the political reflections in which they delight, [...] interrupting the thread of the narrative at every turn.
1623
To philosophize is nothing other than to examine and strengthen these rules. And to apply those which are recognized is the task of the wise person.
c. 108 AD
The only school of true moral sentiment is a society between equals.
1869
Sunset after a Storm on the Coast of Sicily
1853