[One] way to criticize is with excessive benevolence, exaggerated praise, gentle irony.
1926
The higher we rise, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.
1881
In artificial education, [...] teachings and readings stuff the head with notions, before the existence of any serious contact with the visible world.
1909
What the State declares to be just and good must be considered as so declared by each individual.
1677
Bronze tweezers
ca. 2900–1050 BCE
These things [the great ancient monuments] are magnificent testaments to their ignorance as well as to their greatness.
1835-1840
It takes great qualities to make a hero.
1636
Cast your eyes over the nations and the times: examine the religious maxims which have been in vogue in the world, you will have difficulty persuading yourself that they are anything other than the dreams of a man in delirium.
1757
This is how wheat grows: the seed must be buried and hidden in the earth for some time, and develop there slowly, in order to come to fruition.
c. 108 AD
Bronze handle of a vessel with Silenos mask
450–400 BCE
This machine frees the one who operates it from this vexation; it is enough that he has judgment, it relieves him of the defect of memory.
1642-1645
[It is] the apology for work against idleness, and for indigence against wealth.
1741-1784
It should not be ignored that each genre accommodates a different kind of elocution.
329-323 BC
Despair [...] is the greatest of our errors.
1746
Admiral Adam Duncan (1731–1804)
1775
Nature strikes the understanding with a direct ray. Divinity [...] strikes it with a refracted ray. Lastly, man, shown and presented to himself, strikes it with a reflected ray.
1623
The Doge has his sorrows, the gondoliers have theirs. [...] I believe the difference is so small, that it is not worth examining.
1759
'The dignity of humanity is placed in your [artists'] hands, keep it intact! With you it falls! With you it will rise again!'
1896
"Two winged companions, says an Upanishad, two birds are on a tree branch. One eats the fruit, the other watches it." These two birds are the two parts of our soul.
1942
Bronze statuette of a sphinx
ca. 1st century BCE–2nd century CE
When citizens and even magistrates tremble before one of their equals, [...] they are very close to rendering justice [...] according to his whims.
1513-1519
What makes a man is the soul, not this figure that can be pointed at with a finger.
54-51 BC
Expelled from France at the request of the Prussian government, he took refuge in Brussels.
March 17, 1883
It is the irony of life that the most energetic feelings of gratitude and devotion [...] develop in us towards those who, having the power to annihilate our existence [...], are pleased to abstain from it.
1869
Saint John on Patmos
ca. 1511
It is likely that the first virtue that made its appearance among men, and which gave some an advantage over others, was this one [valor].
1580
If, by freely stating [...] the opinion I have of myself, I am to offend the judges, I would rather die.
4th century BC
It is impossible to honor those one despises, nor to willingly obey those one hates and holds in horror.
c. 1552-1553
[One must] make it so that the principal contentment depends only on oneself.
1643-1649
Fragmentary marble inscription
ca. 425–424 BCE
[The predicament of habitus] is suitable only for humans. It is also true that we dress [...] certain animals with clothing that is foreign to them.
c. 1270
It is not possible [...] that evil be destroyed, for there must always be something contrary to the good; it is therefore a necessity that it circulates on this earth and around our mortal nature.
c. 253-270 AD
Since my departure [...], feeling that I would henceforth be a fugitive on earth, I hesitated to allow her to join me and share the wandering life to which I saw myself condemned.
1782-1789
Thus the difference of minds originates from the difference of passions and the different ends to which appetite leads them.
1772
Bronze chisel
ca. 1600–1450 BCE
Divine love is not something of God: it is God himself.
1932
Each person has only the ideas they have made for themselves, and no one can think for another.
1801
In civilized man, egoism enters into the very heart of higher representations: each of us has our own opinions, our beliefs, our own aspirations, and holds to them.
1893
Every community is one body that is in the state of nature in relation to all other states.
1690
Limestone Bes
late 6th–early 5th century BCE
An imperfection in the part may be required for a greater perfection in the whole.
1710
[...] the sureness of taste perhaps supposes a certain difficulty in being moved.
1772
Insults and disgrace are much more deeply felt than praise and applause [...].
1674-1675
It is only by listening to the philosopher that the theologian can be armed in advance against all the difficulties that the former could create for him.
1793
Homeward Bound: "The Great Eastern"
ca. 1866
In short, if you grant divinity to such people, who will recognize your own?
c. 54 AD
Nature had so well made him for command, that he knew not only how to command according to the laws, but, for the public interest, to command the laws themselves.
100-120 AD
Common sense, wit, reason, and their opposites are all born from the same principle, which is the connection of ideas with one another.
1746
An existence, in the course of centuries, is but a horse's leap over a ditch. Whoever fails to satisfy all of nature's inclinations during this time understands nothing of what humanity truly is.
4th century BC
The Bacino, Venice, with the Dogana and a Distant View of the Isola di San Giorgio
ca. 1709