Hunger becomes a permanent feeling. Is it more or less painful than working and eating? An unresolved question... Yes, more painful on the whole.
1934-1942
The imagination is perhaps excusable if it sometimes raves [...] But that the understanding, which ought to think, should rave, on the contrary, is something that can never be forgiven.
1783
No virtue remains hidden. [...] The day will come that, out of the darkness [...], must bring it to light.
63-64 AD
The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism [...] is that the thing, reality, [...] is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as concrete human activity, not as practice.
1841
Picrolite figure
ca. 3900–2500 BCE
...my curiosity made me almost as ardent as him.
1643-1662
It would be useful for those who engage in inventing new machines if they knew nothing more of this matter than what I have just written about it [...].
1637
He is treated as he treated others.
1757-1758
The primitive principle of all our knowledge is the consciousness of our own existence, produced by the feeling of our simplest perceptions [...].
1805
Entrance to a Village
ca. 1665
Perception embraces [several systems] all at once. But the physicist cannot adopt them all together as a reference system: he necessarily chooses one of them.
1922
I do not know who first said that bees had a king. It was probably not a republican in whose head that idea originated.
1764
What knowledge of history [...]? But what an elevation of ideas on the true happiness of man! One sees from his way of thinking [...] that his life was in conformity with his doctrine.
45 BC
Our fathers did not have the word 'individualism' [...], but each of the thousand small groups that made up society thought only of itself. It was [...] a kind of collective individualism.
1856
A Country Road
1648
When the statesman despairs [...] it is then the clear eye of the artist that discerns the forms [...] of a full and complete humanity.
1896
Let men not flatter themselves [...] into imagining that after having distinguished themselves by a thousand proofs of talent and virtue they will be assured of general esteem.
1620
He who has modest tastes does not create trouble for himself; he who is concerned only with his inner progress is not affected by any deprivation.
4th century BC
It is to make oneself a slave against the will of God to submit to the false appearances of truth.
1674-1675
Saint Andrew
ca. 1326
If it [the negative cult] prescribes that the faithful flee the profane world, it is to bring them closer to the sacred world.
1912
From the moment desire and fear are in your power, what can you still worry about?
c. 108 AD
Be resolved to serve no more, and you are at once free. [...] Do not support him any longer, and you will see him, like a great colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.
c. 1552-1553
The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are familiar.
1859
Standing female figurine
ca. 600–480 BCE
[Propositions] are sometimes made by reason of concomitance, [...] sometimes by reason of cause.
c. 1270
Not every end is a goal. The end of the melody is not its goal; and yet, if the melody has not reached its end, it has not reached its goal. A symbol.
1879
[He] only said these things to draw the people's attention to himself. But the people were distracted by other speeches, other spectacles...
1926
Did you not know long ago that at the very moment of my birth, nature had pronounced my death sentence?
4th century BC
Element
7000 BCE - 330 CE
As the gods acquire more knowledge and authority, they become more fearsome.
1757
If truly moral reasons against suicide exist, they must be sought at a depth that the probe of common morality cannot reach.
1840
He who considers the ardor with which everyone proposes himself as a model thinks he sees swimmers [...] crying out to one another: It is I whom you must follow.
1758
Imagine two clocks or watches that are in perfect agreement.
1696
Christ among the Doctors
1668
What is beautiful and great but that which nature has made? What is deformed and weak but that which it has produced in its harshness?
1746
Evil, being but a corruption of the good, could only act or work upon a good foundation; [...] only good things are capable of being corrupted.
c. 253-270 AD
Whoever conceives the divine nature only in a confused way does not see that to exist belongs to the nature of God.
1670
[...] all [sensations] being necessarily pleasant or unpleasant, [the being] is interested in enjoying the ones and avoiding the others.
1754
Limestone funerary stele of a boy
3900 BCE - 100 CE
Just as the parts of the human body draw their nourishment and life from their union [...] so too whatever breaks the society of cities leads to their dissolution.
100-120 AD
One shall spend the greater part of one's time in adornment and grooming, under penalty [...] of not being looked at by any member of the society.
16th century
Although a happy quickness of mind is a gift of nature, art can nevertheless help and perfect it.
1636
The centuries devoid of science and industry were golden ages for the church of Jesus Christ.
1766
Limestone statuette of a temple girl
3rd century BCE–1st century CE
Whoever declares himself the protector of ignorance declares himself the enemy of the State.
1773
If I do not feel, how do you want me to love?
1580
Acting and being acted upon only occur in things that are contrary to each other, or that have a certain contrariety between them.
c. 350 B.C.E.
The power [...] of parents is [...] a natural government; but it in no way extends to the rights, ends, and jurisdiction of [...] political power.
1690
A Man and a Woman on Horseback
ca. 1653–54