To die one day, when you would not wish it, is your obligation: to die whenever you wish it, is your right.
63-64 AD
Just because it is lucrative does not make my conversion any less sincere.
1926
This proves not only that the brutes have less reason than men, but that they have none at all.
1637
Who could have ever imagined that a time would come when these people [the gravediggers] would wish for the health of the sick [...]?
1527
The Bacino, Venice, with the Dogana and a Distant View of the Isola di San Giorgio
ca. 1709
Those who helped this man were not fully aware of who he truly was. They barely suspected his true greatness.
1896
Hope makes more dupes than skill.
1746
The same effect always corresponds to the same cause.
1895
The need to philosophize is universal: it tends to bring any discussion, even about business, to the level of ideas and principles.
1915
Red Sunset
1905–8
The city was merely exchanging one tyranny for another.
100-120 AD
It would be much more accurate to identify the world with the devil.
1851
Assemblies are like children, idleness rarely fails to make them say or do many foolish things.
1893
Tell yourself as soon as you are up in the morning: 'What do I lack to rise above all passions, above all troubles?'
c. 108 AD
Stucco relief panel
2nd half of 1st century CE
What is one thinking, persecuting an honest man whose only enemies are those he has made through his attachment to [a cause]?
1741-1784
The more difficult and fleeting the precision of measurements, the easier it is to be mistaken about the values and nuances of the perceptions one seeks to assess.
1817
[It is the sophism of those] who believe they can explain diverse phenomena by assimilating them to those with which they have been most occupied.
1623
I will not be sorry to sound out enlightened people on the thoughts I have just explained to you.
1696
Mademoiselle Nys
1899
Here, in this kingdom of ice and rocks, one must be a hunter and like the chamois.
1886
Churchmen are commonly reproached for their harshness; in them, it is an effect of the most sublime virtue; a good Christian must be perfectly insensitive.
1768
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
There enters into our composition something of the character of the turtledove, though allied with that of the wolf and the serpent.
1751
Francis I (1494–1547), King of France
1507
There are a thousand ways to gather men, there is only one way to unite them.
1762
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
There is a word without words... Sometimes there is no need for words...
4th century BC
Any idea whatsoever can, in the final analysis, always be reduced to physical facts or sensations.
1772
The Rest on the Flight into Egypt
1530
Montaigne's younger brother [...] later married La Boétie's stepdaughter.
c. 1552-1553
If I compare my entire life to the four years during which I was given to enjoy the sweet company of [my friend], it is but smoke.
1580
Justice is the firm resolution to render to each what is his due according to civil law; injustice consists in taking from someone, under the pretext of right, what is due to him.
1670
'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' Therein lies the true proof that Christianity is something divine.
1947
Faustine Léo (1832–1865)
1842
I have read your Experiments concerning the void, which I consider very beautiful and ingenious, but I do not understand this apparent void that appears in the tube [...].
1653-1662
A beautiful retreat in war brings as much honor as a proud attack.
1636
Marriage is the only real servitude recognized by our laws. There are no longer any slaves by law except for the mistress of each house.
1869
The sight of God requires silence and secrecy.
1263-1264
Buckle
7000 BCE - 330 CE
one must never give full consent except to propositions that appear so evidently true that one cannot refuse it to them without feeling an inner pain and secret reproaches from reason [...].
1674-1675
Everything is mixed with good and evil on earth; there are therefore unquestionably good and bad genii.
1764
Self-knowledge [...] is the beginning of all human wisdom.
1797-1798
In the course of the development of large-scale industry, [working] time increasingly becomes the measure of the value of commodities, which is to say, also the measure of wages.
1849
Portrait of a Man
1703
The communication of motion by impulse is, I believe, as obscure and inconceivable as the manner in which our mind moves our body by thought.
1689
Good upbringing and education, these are the sources of virtue.
c. 387 BC
I felt that a new reading [...] did me good: not only because it served to polish my style [...] but above all because it led me to restrain and conquer my passions.
45 BC
The rich, whose taste is proportional to the rarity of the dishes, would deem them excellent.
1776
Pilate Washing His Hands
probably 1660s