[...] irrational beings (animals, consequently) are things, and should be treated as means that are not at the same time ends. [...] I say that such thoughts are odious and abominable.
1840
One must exhort the living to imitate the virtue of the dead and to console their descendants.
c. 387 BC
The objects of one's attention, desires, and enjoyment multiply.
1754
In translating this dialogue, it seemed to us that we were truly witnessing their conversation; we hope that the reader will experience the same effect.
1773-1774
Young Man and Woman in an Inn
1623
If a being can by its nature be sympathetically affected by another being, it does not follow that the medium [...] shares the affection.
c. 253-270 AD
Irony has something more elevated than buffoonery.
329-323 BC
I discover at the same time that this body has extension, and that my movement consists in traversing it; these two ideas are [...] absolutely correlative, and cannot exist one without the other.
1817
Kings are mortal; assemblies, on the contrary, are eternal.
1677
Self-Portrait
1776
The violence and cruelty with which one treats animals are very contrary to man's duty to himself, for one thus dulls in oneself compassion.
1797-1798
'Where' (Ubi) is the circumscription of a body arising from the circumscription of place.
c. 1270
The desire for reputation, far from deserving blame, seems inseparable from virtue, genius, talent, and a generous and elevated character.
1751
Social life, wherever it is normal, is spontaneous: and if it is abnormal, it cannot last.
1893
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand Périgord (1754–1838), Prince de Bénévent
1808
Philosophers can therefore seek this cause, and try to discover it [...] whether it be mechanical or non-mechanical.
1715-1716
It is with books as it is with the fire in our hearths; one takes this fire from a neighbor, lights it in one's own home, communicates it to others, and it belongs to all.
1733
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
If someone says they do not know how they think, one can reply that they also do not know how they are extended, nor how the solid parts of their body are united to make a whole.
1689
Rock crystal bead with striations
ca. 2200–1450 BCE
After having half-drawn the sword, they seemed to want to sheathe it again; but it was too late, the signal had been seen by their friends outside, and henceforth, they no longer led, they were led.
1893
There are [...] truths so luminous that nothing can obscure their clarity.
81 BC
Servitude debases men to the point of making itself loved.
1747
It is not a doctor, but a patient who dwells here.
63-64 AD
Inscribed marble statue base
ca. 270–250 BCE
[...] even attachment to parents is against pure nature, since it causes pleasure or sorrow.
4th century BC
How common it is for a happy man to deceive himself about the immutability of his happiness!
1636
I must die. If at once, I die; if soon, I dine now, as the hour for it has come; afterwards I will die. [...] As befits one who is giving back what is not his own.
c. 108 AD
The diversity of our opinions does not arise from some being more reasonable than others, but solely from the fact that we conduct our thoughts along different paths, and do not consider the same things.
1637
Portrait of a Venetian Senator
ca. 1525
It is the same self which perceives distinct states, and which, by then fixing its attention more, will see these states merge into one another like snowflakes in prolonged contact with the hand.
1889
He was the object of general admiration, [...] as simple in his clothes, his equipages, and his table, as if he had lived in the Academy with Plato.
100-120 AD
As for me, if I sometimes laugh, if I sometimes sing, it is because I have only this way to give vent to my sorrows and my tears.
1513-1527
'Sovereignty resides in the nation.' No matter how you turn this sentence, I defy anyone to find any meaning in it.
1957
Limestone head of a female votary
late 1st century BCE(?)
I do not count my borrowings, I weigh them.
1580
The divisions of the sciences are not at all like different lines that coincide at a single point, but rather like the branches of a tree, which unite in a single trunk.
1623
The gentle nightingale [...] carves out a thousand chattering warbles from under the shade [...].
1546/1563
The revolution is thorough. [...] when it has accomplished its preliminary work, Europe [...] will exclaim in ecstasy: 'Well grubbed, old mole!'
1851/1852
Limestone statue of a male votary holding a bird in the left hand
ca 500–450 BCE
To please the mind, one must occupy it without tiring it.
1758
He has a very good mind, but he is not a geometer (which is, as you know, a great flaw) and he does not even understand that a mathematical line is infinitely divisible.
1643-1662
Take away ideas, you take away truths, for it is evident that truths are only the relationships that exist between ideas.
1707
Art saves him, and through art — life wins him back.
1872
Hoof, cow
7000 BCE - 330 CE
I believe that the social relations between the two sexes, which subordinate one sex to the other in the name of the law, are wrong in themselves and now constitute one of the chief hindrances to human improvement.
1869
[Certain poets] are much less entangled than we are in moral subtleties.
1926
The extreme inequality in the manner of living [...] these are the fatal proofs that most of our ills are of our own making, and that we would have avoided nearly all of them by preserving the simple, uniform, and solitary way of life prescribed to us by nature.
1755
Glory [...] is a passion produced by the imagination or by the conception of our own power, which we judge to be superior to the power of the one with whom we are comparing ourselves.
1772
Pietà
ca. 1657–60