The privilege and superiority of man, endowed with reflection and reminiscence.
Mid-fourth century BC and 322 BC
With regard to great faults, one does not suppress the knowledge of them; one only suspends it for a time.
1636
The Roman Empire [...] turned its arms against itself, less because of the ambition of its leaders [...] than because of the avarice and licentiousness of the soldiers, who drove them out one after another, as one nail drives out another.
100-120 AD
When [the artist] looks at a thing, he sees it for its own sake, and not for his. He no longer perceives simply in order to act; he perceives for the sake of perceiving — for nothing, for pleasure.
1911
Bathsheba at Her Bath
ca. 1700
Never read anything by those arrogant polymaths and muddled minds who have the most horrible flaw, that of the logical paradox.
1879
Is this god not a heap of contradictory qualities, which make him an inexplicable enigma?
1766
For the public convenience, it would be necessary to establish [...] lantern-bearers and torch-bearers to lead, guide, and light those who wish to come and go through the streets.
1662
From the perspective of the intellect, affirmation, which signifies composition, is prior to negation, which signifies division.
c. 1270
Stucco relief panel
2nd half of 1st century CE
To truly know the nature of the people, one must be a prince; and to truly know the nature of princes, one must be of the people.
1855
For every solution, [the ancients] addressed the root, the origin, the Principle that contains them all; and it is this high-level view that made their government superior.
4th century BC
As long as the goal of meditations and research is limited to the sole pleasure of knowing, [...] the understanding is at ease and no necessity presses it.
1609
On the assumption that character were the effect of organization, what could education do?
1772
Self-Portrait
1795
The feeling of pain is more intense than the feeling of pleasure.
1674-1675
[...] old age upon which all infirmities converge, and that without any relief.
4th century BC
What then are we ourselves? We are that which is essentially us, we are the principle to which nature has given the power to triumph over the passions.
c. 253-270 AD
If you are disgusted with [certain] citizens, make it known: those who [...] still have the freedom of choice, will change their system, will follow another path.
59 BC
Statuette of a youth
6th century BCE
My spirits, fed by this freedom [to write], regain new strength.
1574
[Theologians] are people of bad faith, who abuse the credulity of the people to insinuate to them what they please, as if the common folk were absolutely unworthy of the truth [...].
17th century
There is [...] a country in the world [...] where they have a way of thinking, especially in morality, which is diametrically opposed to ours.
1751
The money withdrawn from them crossed the provinces and passed on to foreign lands without leaving a trace.
1776
Saint Francis of Assisi
ca. 1480–81
Their nature is much easier to conceive when we see them gradually come into being in this way, than when we consider them only as already made.
1637
If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.
1859
[A ruler] knows that if he punished all who insult him, he would have no one left to rule.
c. 108 AD
All good maxims are in the world, [...] one only has to apply them; but that is very difficult.
1746
Limestone statuette of Geryon
probably early 5th century BCE
In matters of the press, there is therefore really no middle ground between servitude and license. To reap the inestimable benefits that freedom of the press provides, one must know how to submit to the inevitable evils it gives rise to.
1835-1840
Philosophy is nothing other than [...] the science of living honestly, or, the art of following the right path in life.
circa 65 AD
Adultery [...is] very different in each of the two sexes, both in its motives and in its consequences.
1926
Ignorance received these maxims, fraud supported them, and the sword sustained them.
1769
Baron Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859)
1859
He who, a victim of his imagination for the first time, suffers this shame [...] having started badly, feels such vexation from this accident that he is in such a state of agitation that he runs a great risk of not showing himself to better advantage in subsequent encounters.
1580
The word of man is divine, in other words: it is an immense and incommensurable power like thought, of which it is the invisible body.
1841
What does it matter whether one is free or a serf in this valley of miseries? The essential thing is to get to paradise, and resignation is but one more means to that end.
1762
A government that would at the same time be legislative would rightly be called despotic [...].
1797
Bronze strainer with loop handle
5th century BCE
The question of whether the same man remains is a question of name, depending on whether one understands by 'man' only the rational spirit, or only the body [...], or finally the spirit united to such a body.
1704
It is quite extraordinary that since the time men have been thinking [...], it should be a new discovery to know that to think is the same as to feel.
1801
A general rise in wages would lead to a general fall in profits, and the current price of commodities would not undergo any alteration.
1847
It is this kind of stratagem that Scipio used when he attacked the Carthaginians, not in Italy, but in Africa.
1830-1831
The Card Party
ca. 1665
However different the acts so qualified may seem at first glance, it is impossible that they do not have some common ground. For they affect the moral conscience of nations everywhere in the same way.
1893
The splendor of nations [...] has always grown at the expense of their felicity.
1770
[Lawmakers] might be tempted to propose [...] only their own advantage, and to have distinct and separate interests from the rest of the community.
1690
Supernatural compassion for human beings can only be a participation in the compassion of God, which is the Passion.
1942
Portrait of a Young Boy
1591