Often, by wanting to keep everything, one loses everything, and by being unwilling to part with false customs [...] one gives enemies the opportunity to shake the good [...] traditions.
c. 1552-1553
His knowledge and his courage were in this respect, above philosophy itself.
1580
One cannot analyze enthusiasm when one experiences it, since then one is not master of one's reflection.
1746
One found in his victories the end of his perils; while the other had, in victory itself, [...] a source of dangers.
100-120 AD
View of the Tiber
before 1789
The Evangelists, in their love for the truth, were not afraid to recount the facts that appeared most unfavorable to their Master.
1263-1264
There are no people more offended by wickedness than those who have never known what it costs to be good.
1759-1774
The necessary being and the being by its essence are but one and the same thing.
Late 17th - early 18th century
It is our will and pleasure that the lanterns at the corners and in the middle of the streets [...] be preserved there, as is customary.
1662
Bronze pendant in the form of a paired couple
8th century BCE
Others hastily stitch together small accounts and small commentaries, from which they form a fabric full of inequalities.
1623
The desire for power is general; [...] if all men do not expose themselves to the same dangers, it is because the love of self-preservation is in balance with the love of power.
1772
This so-called virtue [humility] is only fit to degrade man, to debase him in his own eyes, to stifle in him all energy and all desire to be useful to society.
1766
We are sick of this modernity—sick of this unhealthy peace, of this cowardly compromise, of all this virtuous uncleanliness of the modern yes and no.
1888
Bronze helmet attachment
late 6th century BCE
You are all, therefore, of the same opinion, and there is nothing to quarrel about.
1747
Of Essence and Quality.
c. 253-270 AD
There are then in the soul, it seems, false pleasures, which only ridiculously imitate the true ones [...].
c. 360 BC
The judge states the law, he does not pronounce penalties.
1893
Leisure Time in an Elegant Setting
ca. 1663–65
[...] the opinion in favour of the present system, which subordinates the weaker sex to the stronger, rests upon theory only; for there never has been trial made of any other, so that experience [...] cannot be pretended to have pronounced any verdict.
1869
What booklet [from a great mind], however small, does not contain some bright light, some general and fertile idea?
1864-1866
Thales [...] laid the foundations of philosophy in Greece.
45 BC
A long refutation in such matters is repugnant to the dignity of reason and leads to nothing.
1790
Limestone cippus of Philon
ca. 2nd–3rd century CE
That our very existence implies a fault is proven by death.
1851
The fear shown by the new ministers in the face of the rebellious masses was such that any means seemed good to them, as long as it served to consolidate the shaken foundations of authority!
1851-1852
[...] violence and suspicion are things contrary to my nature.
1643-1649
There is a kind of contradiction between the two principles of human nature upon which religion is founded. Our natural terrors make us see a wicked deity [...]; our inclination to praise paints it as excellent and all-perfect.
1757
The Dispatch of the Messenger
1765
Our soul will have cause to rejoice when, freed from the darkness in which it struggles, it can [...] be wholly filled with the great light.
63-64 AD
The evil is not in dying, but in dying shamefully.
c. 108 AD
A prodigious number of movements, and [...] an incredible quantity of intellectual operations of which we are not even conscious, are continually taking place within us.
1801
If [a prince] were ever attacked, the assailant would retreat in shame: for the things of this world are variable.
1513
Madonna and Child with Nine Angels
ca. 1315
Method to follow in the history of animals: one must begin with the study of man, who is the best known to us of all.
Mid-fourth century BC and 322 BC
If you make reason a prisoner under the domination of faith, why do you not place your own nature in the custody of Christian virtue?
1842-1845
order demanding that minds which have often thought of some object think of it again more easily, and have a clearer and more vivid idea of it than those who have thought little of it[...]
1674-1675
He who is truly obedient necessarily has true and salutary faith; for the spirit of obedience necessarily implies the spirit of faith.
1670
Madonna and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist
ca. 1497
There are neither talents, nor wisdom, nor solid pleasures in the heart of error.
1746
The decisive test of a heroic heart is when it is free to take revenge on an enemy at will.
1636
Our senses, our faculties, and our organs are so arranged that they may serve us for the necessities of this life, and for what we have to do in this world.
1689
It is only with the help of reflection and study that we can manage to [...] subject the body to the empire of the mind, to lead the soul [...] to the knowledge of its duties and its end.
1750
Still Life with Cheese
probably late 1870s
What we look at down here is not real, it is a stage set. What we eat is destroyed, is no longer real.
1947
Conceiving is a last resort in cases where one cannot perceive, and reasoning is only necessary insofar as one must fill the gaps in perception.
1911
To impose on the people what they please to call their experience, is that not worse than abandoning them to themselves?
4th century BC
The sun shines today also. [...] Let us demand our own works, and laws, and worship.
1836
Terracotta woman
ca. 600–480 BCE