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Dead Smart People

When you're tired of listening to living idiots.

Français

I hold that when God performs miracles, it is not to supply the needs of nature, but those of grace.

1715-1716

It is certainly madness, because one will be unhappy someday, to be so right now.

63-64 AD

The first days of spring have less grace than the nascent virtue of a young man.

1746

Light is not the quality of a subject; it is the act that emanates from a subject, but does not pass into another subject; only, if another subject is present, it will experience an affection.

c. 253-270 AD

Cypriot artist

Limestone plaque with two eyes in relief

Limestone plaque with two eyes in relief

480–310 BCE

[This power] seeks only [...] to keep them in perpetual childhood; it likes citizens to rejoice, provided they think only of rejoicing.

1835-1840

The dissimilarities between people have become more pronounced as they have become more cultivated.

1893

The truth is that French literature [...] has only ever been renewed by breaths from the outside.

1926

Intention alone decides the moral value [...] of a given act, so much so that the same act, depending on the agent's intention, can be either blameworthy or praiseworthy.

1840

Etruscan artist

Bronze kyathos (single-handled jug)

Bronze kyathos (single-handled jug)

ca. 450–400 BCE

Madmen do not pass for what they are among the mad who resemble them, but only among reasonable men.

1674-1675

These swallows that go [...] are the messengers of spring.

1546/1563

What makes a man is the soul, not this figure that can be pointed at with a finger.

54-51 BC

The word is also an image, an eminently abstract image; indeed, by pronouncing the name of a thing, one imagines one knows the thing itself.

1841

Cypriot artist

Needle

Needle

3900 BCE - 100 CE

I think, therefore I am.

1637

All the religions we see on earth show us nothing but a heap of impostures and reveries that equally revolt reason.

1766

[The] words of the Lord can be applied to all Christians who strive for eternal joys through the tears and sufferings of this life.

1263-1264

[A remedy is] certain in the hands of a good practitioner [...] but [it is a] deadly instrument in the hands of an ignorant person.

1623

Greek Artist

Bronze youth

Bronze youth

late 5th century BCE

Error is inherent in human nature; it is enough merely to reconsider.

1527

Duration and movement are measured with the utmost precision, thanks to extension.

1817

The body is nourished as long as it lives and lasts, and even when it decays; but it does not grow unceasingly.

c. 350 B.C.E.

Outside of us, reciprocal externality without succession; within, succession without reciprocal externality.

1889

Greek Artist

Gold pin with pomegranate head

Gold pin with pomegranate head

7th–6th century BCE

What is the seal of realized liberty? — To be no longer ashamed of oneself.

1882

The wife is actually the slave of her husband, no less, within the limits of legal obligation, than are slaves properly so called.

1869

Only theft can still save property; only perjury, religion; bastardy, the family; disorder, order!

1851/1852

Judgments are [...] either merely subjective, when representations are related to a single consciousness in one subject, or they are objective when they are united in a consciousness in general, that is to say [...] necessary.

1783

Cypriot artist

Limestone inscribed block

Limestone inscribed block

3900 BCE - 100 CE

More docile to opinion than to reason, [...] men indifferently accept [...] all the true or false ideas presented to them.

1758

I see a light spread in all directions [...] which is not concentrated in a single point [...]. I find there, independently of any judgment, [...] the idea of extension with all its dimensions.

1746

Trust me [...]: you can trust no one.

c. 108 AD

I have learned to doubt whether a man enjoying a great fortune, whoever he may be, can sincerely love my principles and their author.

1782-1789

Villanovan

Bronze pendant in the form of a paired couple

Bronze pendant in the form of a paired couple

8th century BCE

This [...] is the shooting of a shooter, of a man who wants to shoot, of a man who knows he is shooting (art, not nature).

4th century BC

The material reality of the accident [is deemed] 'insufficiently established'.

1643-1662

In a reasonable Creature, anything that is not done out of affection is neither bad nor good.

1745

Listen to the protestations of men, there is nothing of which they are so assured as the truth of their religion. Look at their conduct: you will doubt they ever had any religion at all.

1757

Greek Artist, Boeotian

Terracotta statuette of a woman

Terracotta statuette of a woman

3rd century BCE

A great provision for governing well is not wealth, but moderation in our desires.

100-120 AD

A minister does not correct himself and cannot be corrected; he has reached his full growth [...] he has no time to listen to advice, the tide of affairs carries him away.

1764

Although a passion, for being secret, is no less a passion, [...] it matters greatly to know how to make a mystery of it.

1636

The seer knows the signs of what will come to pass, [...] but whether it is better for us that this should happen or not is for another to judge.

c. 380 BC

Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes)

Sebastián Martínez y Pérez (1747–1800)

Sebastián Martínez y Pérez (1747–1800)

1792

Political societies have been founded on nothing other than the consent of the people.

1690

'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' Therein lies the true proof that Christianity is something divine.

1947

Because a book has corrupted parts, is that a reason to regard all the rest as suspect? Has a book ever been found that was entirely free from faults?

1670

If it had been proposed to Saint Augustine to annihilate his writings... or to lose his children..., would it not have been an impiety on his part not to sacrifice the latter?

1580

Luis Meléndez

The Afternoon Meal (La Merienda)

The Afternoon Meal (La Merienda)

ca. 1772