Truth is nothing other than a real relation, either of equality or of inequality.
1674-1675
Where vice reigns so imperiously, it cannot be overstated, let us not believe that peace of mind and pleasure can dwell.
1746
All my high-society friends have betrayed me, and Colin, whom I despised, alone comes to my aid. What a lesson!
1764
We will do voluntarily, under the auspices of reason, what today we only do in spite of ourselves, by the constraint of laws.
1st Century A.D.
Heroic Landscape with Rainbow
1824
The reputation of a man of wit has been attached less to the number and subtlety of his ideas than to the fortunate choice of them.
1758
A hero never appears greater than in circumstances capable of obscuring the glory of anyone other than himself.
1636
Education does not create man from scratch [...]; it is applied to dispositions it finds already made.
1922
He who sang so loudly the praises of the vine was perhaps but a mediocre drinker [...].
1926
Parochialstrasse in Berlin
1831
All laws are dead and allow themselves to be corrupted [...]. Everything thus comes down to making good living laws, that is, to making a good selection of capable individuals, endowed with good understanding and probity.
c. 1552-1553
We must always start from the impressions we receive, that is to say, from the facts; examining them with attention so as to see in them nothing but what is there [...].
1817
I hold that one created substance does not act upon another in metaphysical rigor, that is, with a real influence.
1686
We shall constantly slander one another [...] without being held back by any consideration.
16th century
Terracotta statuette of a doll
3rd century BCE
It is universally admitted that partiality is incompatible with justice; preference given to one person over another, when there is no reason to prefer them, is unjust.
1861
[Certain ideas] are such that [...] I am forced to say that they are and would always be the same, even if neither I, nor any man, had ever thought of them.
c. 1660
There exist well-known [remedies]; but the gradation to be followed in administering them is so delicate [...] that very few people are able to benefit from them.
1623
Style is the physiognomy of the soul.
63-64 AD
Scene in the Jewish Quarter of Constantine
1851
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
To hide was to condemn oneself to the most shameful death; to join [the enemy] was crime and madness: courage, virtue, and honor commanded to join the [good citizens].
63 BC
The mixture of allegorical and real beings gives history the air of a fairy tale.
1766
Anyone who wants to think in terms of Relativity must begin by eliminating the tactile, or by transposing it into the visual.
1922
Bronze batillum (incense shovel)
late 1st–early 2nd century CE
It is claimed that [the epic] is addressed to people of sound judgment, [...] while tragedy is addressed to spectators of inferior taste.
c. 335 BC
Nothing can be at the same time active and passive in regard to the same thing.
c. 1270
Whenever a principle demonstrated to be true seems inapplicable, it is because we are ignorant of the intermediate principle which contains the means of its application.
1797
The main point of education [...] is that in everything perception precedes the notion, the narrow notion the broader notion.
1909
A Jaguar Devouring a Deer
after 1840
Away with this insane and impossible contempt for all sensible things, for all external objects! This is not how nature speaks; I recognize no other language here than that of pride.
1742
That all bodies are reluctant to separate from one another [...]; that is to say, that Nature abhors the void.
1647
[The petty bourgeoisie] never felt more at ease than the day after a decisive defeat, when, everything being lost, it at least had the consolation of knowing that, in one way or another, things were settled.
1851-1852
It is shameful to tolerate the existence of newspapers where [...] no contributor could remain if they did not sometimes agree to knowingly alter the truth.
1943
Colossal marble head of the emperor Augustus
ca. 14–30 CE
Revealed belief corrupts [...] the moral sense, [...] unfortunately it does even more, it treacherously poisons the sense of truth, which is the most precious, the most delicate, the most divine in our being. Therein lies its true crime against humanity.
1841
There is no wicked man who could not be made good for something.
1762
It is only by exterminating that [a nation] will ensure its domination over previously free peoples.
1776
The Christian religion [...] proscribes [...] reason? Does it not forbid its use in the examination of the marvelous dogmas it presents to us?
1766
Still Life with Cheese
probably late 1870s
If I grow older, I know that I will necessarily have to pay my tribute to old age; my sight will weaken, I will hear less well, my intelligence will decline [...].
4th century BC
Americans, who mingle so easily in political assemblies, take great care to divide themselves into small associations in order to enjoy the pleasures of private life separately.
1835-1840
There is only one way that leads there: to renounce all things that do not depend on our free will, to detach ourselves from them, to recognize that they are foreign to us.
c. 108 AD
To do well, man must follow his natural instinct.
4th century BC
Bronze handle of a hydria (water jar)
ca. 460–450 BCE
It is [...] the unjust use of violence that puts a man in a state of war with another; and thereby, the one who is guilty of it forfeits his right to life.
1690
O high noon of life! [...] Restless happiness, standing and listening; I await friends, ready night and day.
1886
I learned not to believe anything too firmly of which I had been persuaded only by example and custom.
1637
We readily admit others' superiority in courage, in physical strength, [...] but we concede superiority in judgment to no one.
1580
Terracotta statuette of a woman
3rd century BCE