It happened that some poplars in a neighboring garden grew tall enough to hide the view of this tower. At which, Kant became very troubled, [...] and finally found himself positively unable to continue his evening meditations.
1827
The disciple of wisdom is as if confused, however blameless he may be, and feels his inadequacy, however advanced he may be.
4th century BC
The sweetness of marriage and the tender cares of fatherhood are so many obstacles that divert men from high enterprises.
1620
[...] all our knowledge consists only in our judgments.
1803
Portrait of a Dwarf
1525
There is an internal war in man between reason and the passions.
1670
Vanity [...] stirs us much more than the love of truth.
1674-1675
Agree [...] that we often act according to what we want, but that we never want except according to what we feel, or according to what we think.
1746
It is [...] with the same ease that one can turn the minds of children in whatever direction one wishes.
1772
Study for "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte"
1884
Besides, if he wanted to live as an honest man, he would have to do two things equally difficult at his age: learn much and forget much.
81 BC
In nature, there are things that belong only to the realm of opinion, and others that are the object of pure intelligence. The former are but uncertainty and error.
1st Century A.D.
What characterizes all literary decadence? The fact that life no longer resides in the whole. The word becomes sovereign [...], the page comes to life at the expense of the whole—the whole is no longer a whole.
1888
The only grace I have the right to [...] ask [...] is that you judge it only after having read my work [...].
1743
Copper alloy spearhead
ca. 2500–2000 BCE
Senseless plan, blind cruelty! Could not the Lord, who was able to resurrect a dead man, resurrect him if he were killed?
1263-1264
[...] a single man will be able to press as hard with this screw as a hundred could do without it, provided only that one subtracts the force required to turn it.
1637
[Witty remarks and bold actions] have often been like wings to suddenly reach the summit of greatness.
1636
Why are celibacy, fasting, macerations, self-denial, humility [...] and all monastic virtues rejected by all sensible men? It is because they lead to nothing.
1751
Young Woman in a Blue and Black Dress
ca. 1863 (?)
Our misery, we do not create it. It is real. That is why we must cherish it. All the rest is imaginary.
1947
Is not pleasure most often an absence of pain?
c. 360 BC
I think it is very unwise for man to want to limit the possible and judge the future, he from whom the real and the present escape every day.
1835-1840
It is only when we have understood how deeply [the artist] suffered [...] for an inaccessible ideal, that we begin to conceive who he was.
1896
Statuette of a horseman, 3
7th–6th century BCE
The leader [inspired by God] was in this sense far inferior, as a man, to the founder of an empire [...] and to the heroes.
1855
Reason, which is that law [of nature], teaches all mankind [...] that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.
1690
[...] being unable to have what they wanted, they pretended to want what they could.
1580
If we specialize, it is not to produce more, but to be able to live in the new conditions of existence that have been made for us.
1893
Arrowhead
ca. 480–330 BCE
Obedience concerns not so much the outward act as the inward action of the soul.
1670
[...] political power is precisely the official summary of antagonism in civil society.
1847
This is the beginning of the first Olympian ode by Pindar.
c. 1552-1553
Is there any person who is with you as constantly as yourself? Who has as many means to persuade you as yourself?
c. 108 AD
Pietà
ca. 1657–60
And rather, while I am still alive.
55-56 AD
As for me, there are so many things I can easily do without, that it costs me nothing to despise wealth.
1741-1784
Strength is what dominates in him. His verse is robust.
1926
The farmer produces more than he consumes. It is with his surplus that he sustains those who do not cultivate.
1776
Terracotta statuette of a dancing girl
4th century BCE
[Matter] whose differences express more of this or that reality, is also more of a substance; and that whose differences express more of privation is more of non-being.
c. 350 B.C.E.
The idea that the world is a great machine that moves without God's intervention [...] introduces materialism and fatalism.
1715-1716
A physics that would maintain that its explanations [...] exhaust the essence of the world would be naturalism proper.
1819
The soul was put into the body to do good, and it would not know evil if it did not do it.
c. 253-270 AD
Buckle with lion and boar
1st–3rd century CE
We do not call an action wrong unless we mean to imply that the person who has committed it ought to be punished in some way or other [...].
1861
He made large stones rain from the sky onto a battalion of enemies fleeing before him.
1773-1774
Our entire past is there, subconscious — [...] present to us in such a way that our consciousness, to have it revealed, does not need to go outside itself [...].
1919
A miracle is an effect contrary to the constant laws of nature; consequently, God himself, without injuring his wisdom, cannot perform miracles.
1766
Louis Morau
1785