If a subject is found with the talent [...] to copy, equal, even surpass, [one must] train them, instruct them, and hide nothing of one's methods from them.
1741-1784
What would we say of a Turk who came today to insult our religion, and tell us that we count among our sacred books [...] so many other books of this kind?
1764
We have for our part inconstancy, irresolution, uncertainty, grief, superstition, solicitude for things to come [...], ambition, avarice, jealousy, envy, unruly appetites [...], war, lying, disloyalty, slander, and curiosity.
1580
This great collective idea of all Bodies designated by the term Universe is as much a single idea as that of the smallest particle of Matter in the World.
1689
George IV (1762–1830), When Prince of Wales
1773
Reason deceives us more often than nature.
1747
Yes, [he said], when they want to be greater than me; but those who work to increase my power, it is also just to let them share in it.
100-120 AD
One must not [...] be deceived by the apparent gentleness of American legislation, in what relates to political judgments.
1835-1840
I find his image more dangerous than his person.
1761
A Bouquet of Flowers in a Crystal Vase
1662
All that is beautiful in the world, it holds from the One who formed it, but all that happens [...] that is bad and unjust, it receives from that prior state.
c. 253-270 AD
[It was agreed...] that he would be exposed to all the inconveniences, and to all the evils to which men are subject.
1518-1527
The bourgeoisie is bound to fear the stupidity of the masses so long as they remain conservative, and the intelligence of the masses as soon as they become revolutionary.
1851/1852
Every man who acts wisely considers all the circumstances and connections of the resolution he makes, and does so according to the measure of his capacity.
1686
Virgin and Child
ca. 1520
As long as agriculture was regarded as the primary art, [...] men, far from being able to become soft, were necessarily sober and industrious.
1776
Many ideas grow better once transplanted into an intelligence other than the one where they first sprouted.
1926
Matter is a simple potentiality. [...] The species is perfect reality, entelechy.
384–322 BC
All our adequate ideas are true.
1670
Bronze thymiaterion (incense burner)
ca. 325–275 BCE
The awareness of [...] impossibility forces us to continually desire to grasp the ungraspable through everything we desire, know, and want.
1947
[He] preferred to rush into the unknown [...] rather than abdicate a single particle of his independence.
1896
There are no men so dull and so stupid [...] that they are incapable of arranging various words together and composing a discourse from them by which they make their thoughts understood.
1637
So you must not think a man has lived long because he has wrinkles and white hair: he has not lived long, he has existed long.
c. 49 AD
Marble statue of Aphrodite
1st or 2nd century CE
We must not [...] present social life as a simple resultant of individual natures, since, on the contrary, it is rather the latter that result from the former.
1893
Your life is worth even more than your two hands, [...] So why do you make yourself sick with sadness, to the point of compromising your life, for such an insignificant object?
4th century BC
I esteem a man whose self-love [...] is so directed as to give him a concern for others and to make himself useful to society.
1751
The power of the priest is linked to the superstition and stupid credulity of the people. [...] the less enlightened they are, the more docile they are to his decisions.
1772
Limestone finial of a funerary stele
late 5th or early 4th century BCE
He manifested, when He willed, His divine power [...] because He wished to serve as an example for our weakness.
1263-1264
France's role in the evolution of modern philosophy is quite clear: France has been the great initiator.
1915
Utility is the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being.
1859
It is in vain that one would expect the salvation of humankind from progressive improvement. [...] [Institutions] must be entirely reconstituted if we hope to see anything good come out of them.
1777
Portrait of a Married Couple (Lorenz Kraffter and Honesta Merz?)
1512
April, the grace, and the smile [...], the scent and the sweet breath.
1546/1563
It is therefore in the decomposition of the proposition into its elements that the separation between the brute and the intelligent species par excellence is marked.
1803
It is good that several people apply themselves to anatomy, since it is extremely useful to know it, and the knowledge to which we should aspire is that which is most useful to us.
1674-1675
Indeed, [...] if nature has confined our lives within narrow bounds, she has set none to our glory.
63 BC
Marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834)
1785
[The one] [...] who has never ceased his whole life to do useful and honest deeds, is truly the victor.
4th century BC
The doctrine of equality! But there is no more venomous poison, for it seems to be preached by justice itself, whereas it is the end of all justice.
1888
We expressly forbid all persons [...] from interfering in such an establishment, or causing it any trouble or hindrance, under any pretext whatsoever.
1662
Those who [...] asserted that nothing can be known with certainty, [propagate] a discouraging opinion.
1620
Judith with the Head of Holofernes
ca. 1640
Immense treasures [...] have dissipated and vanished, but fame has collected and preserved the witty words they have spoken.
1636
Fear is a passion totally opposed to love. A son who fears his father, [...] who dreads his whims, will never love him sincerely.
1766
If he does not have this talent, he will not know it, even if I were to write it to him a thousand times.
c. 108 AD
Let us compare the impression made on us by the news of a crime [...] with the news of a voluntary death. The first provokes lively indignation [...], the second will arouse sadness and sympathy.
1851
Portrait of a Man, Possibly Ottavio Farnese (1524–1586), Duke of Parma and Piacenza
1563