Another sign of a prosperity nearing its end is its long duration: fortune grows old [...] with the years, as we do.
1636
A married philosopher belongs in comedy, that is my thesis.
1887
Men's maxims reveal their hearts.
1746
By concluding [...] that a duration 'is double itself,' Zeno remained within the logic of his hypothesis.
1896
Bronze statuette of a youth carrying a pig
early 5th century BCE
[A certain] mobility of impressions [...] stems from one's very nature and not from external causes.
1926
To make the movement of the operation simpler, it was necessary for the machine to be built with a more complex movement.
1642-1645
Thus, revelation itself will prove the authority of revelation.
1766
We are in unreality, in a dream. To renounce our imaginary central position [...] is to awaken to the real, to the eternal, to see the true light, to hear the true silence.
1942
Madonna and Child with Saints Jerome and Francis
1495
Arrange favorable circumstances, and what you desire will happen without you seeming to be involved.
1797-1798
Complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth [...], and in no other way can a human being have the rational assurance of being right.
1859
I have no clear idea of my mind, in which I could discover all the modifications of which it is capable.
1674-1675
It is we ourselves who are the will to live: that is why we feel the need to live, whether well or badly.
1819
Landing the Shore End of the Atlantic Cable
1866
In men of mediocre capacity, the social virtues become [...] still more necessary, because nothing can compensate for the lack of these virtues, nor shield a man from our hatred.
1751
To always want the same things, one must want the truth.
63-64 AD
Everyone shall be bound to envy the happiness of others, and consequently to cause them all the annoyances within his power.
16th century
Judge [...] which is better, either polygamy permitted by law, or a general corruption authorized by custom.
1773
Portrait of a Married Couple (Lorenz Kraffter and Honesta Merz?)
1512
[Man] is not wretched enough, if by art and study he does not augment his misery.
1580
It is obviously a defect to mock that which is not worthy of mockery.
c. 1660
I cannot persuade myself that, to be right, one is indispensably obliged to speak last.
1750
[The sovereign power] does not break wills, but it softens them, bends them, and directs them; it rarely forces one to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one's acting.
1835-1840
Bronze strainer
5th century BCE
The weakest of all souls are those whose will [...] allows itself to be continually carried away by the present passions, which [...] put the soul in the most deplorable state it can be.
1649
There is no jealousy more bitter and more deadly than that of men of this class [distinguished artists].
1620
It is up to the philosophers and the wise of the earth to enlighten their fellow citizens.
1770
The diseases of the mind are not cured otherwise [than with time].
c. 1552-1553
Limestone horse with a rider
middle or 3rd quarter of the 6th century BCE
The practical philosopher is one who takes the final end of reason as the principle of his actions, and who moreover possesses the necessary knowledge for it.
1797-1798
Not only does the scientist no longer cultivate different sciences simultaneously, but he no longer even embraces an entire science as a whole. The circle of his research is restricted to a specific set of problems or even to a single problem.
1893
In the words of Danton, the greatest master of revolutionary tactics yet known: de l’audace, de l’audace, encore de l’audace! (daring, daring, and again daring!)
1851-1852
Glory is a brilliant fame [...], acquired through great and numerous services rendered to one's own, to one's country, to all of humanity.
46 BC
Eye Miniature
1800
The devil sends [...] his suggestions into souls to mingle them with man's thoughts.
1263-1264
The writer wrote in an age of decadence; and he suffered, as much as and more than anyone, the fatal influence of his time.
100-120 AD
It is impossible for men ever to search accurately for [...] the agreement [...] of Ideas, while their thoughts only roll [...] upon sounds of doubtful and uncertain meaning.
1689
[Nobility consists in] despising even those who are of a similar condition to our own ancestors.
329-323 BC
Garden of the Painter at Saint Clair
1908
But is [my religion] recognized as such by the universe? No; the earth still groans under a multitude of temples dedicated to error.
1772
[...] this is the origin of the inclination we have to believe [our first knowledge] is innate.
1754
I know nothing of these vain, useless, and inactive masses [...]. There is action everywhere [...] I believe there is no body without motion, nor any substance without effort.
1695
It is a king's lot to be well, and to hear it said that one is unwell.
c. 108 AD
James Stuart (1612–1655), Duke of Richmond and Lennox
ca. 1633–35
Nothing can [...] happen to one of its parts without the other parts feeling it more or less, and the world thus forms a whole sympathetic to itself.
c. 253-270 AD
The appearance of Sages causes the appearance of brigands, and the disappearance of Sages causes the disappearance of brigands. Sages and brigands, these two terms are correlative, one calls for the other [...].
4th century BC
Any mediating being between God and the universe is therefore a being of the imagination.
1841
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
c. 375 BC
Limestone funerary cippus
ca. 2nd–3rd century CE