It is only when we have understood how deeply [the artist] suffered [...] for an inaccessible ideal, that we begin to conceive who he was.
1896
The test fails: he despairs, becomes indignant, and contrasts the faithfulness of his dog with his forgetful beloved.
1926
Where truth and nature are, there also is prudence; where truth and nature are, there also is confidence.
c. 108 AD
Who could have ever imagined that a time would come when these people [the gravediggers] would wish for the health of the sick [...]?
1527
Madonna and Child with Saints
1607
He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.
c. 350 BCE
Where several [centers of power] enjoy liberty, it is not enough for one who wishes to pave a way to empire to seize just one in order to master the others.
1677
Any mixture whatsoever [...] absolutely requires measure and proportion, otherwise it is not a mixture, but a confusion.
c. 360 BC
The Romans have learned from their fathers to redeem their country with iron, and not with gold.
100-120 AD
Spearhead
3900 BCE - 100 CE
In what was believed [...] to be a simple idea, a single perception, there are many distinct parts; and [...] many different intellectual operations were necessary to assemble these parts.
1805
I reduce all of mechanics to a single proposition of metaphysics.
1686
To say: 'The world is God', or 'the world is the world', amounts to the same thing.
1851
Pythagoras, the first to have taken the name of philosopher...
45 BC
Madonna and Child with Saints Jerome and Francis
1495
Creation on God's part is an act not of self-expansion, but of withdrawal, of renunciation.
1942
To accomplish great things, one must live as if one were never to die.
1747
And he who is a terror to all, must be afraid of all.
c. 41 AD
[Witty remarks and bold actions] have often been like wings to suddenly reach the summit of greatness.
1636
Axehead
ca. 3200–2000 BCE
Thus a second self is formed which covers the first, a self whose existence has distinct moments, whose states are detached from one another and are easily expressed in words.
1889
The Soul in that state is but [...] above the condition of a Mirror which, constantly receiving diverse Images or ideas, retains none of them.
1689
[...] the flatly ironic turn of phrase, which wounds even more than insult.
1765-1769
Wherever there is a real need to judge, a need inherent in reason itself [...], there is necessarily a maxim according to which we must pass our judgment; for reason wants to be satisfied.
1786
A Female Allegorical Figure
ca. 1740–50
To give up one's life for a dream is to value life for exactly what it is worth.
1580
If to have liberty it is necessary only to desire it, if only a simple act of will is needed, will there be any nation in the world that still deems it too expensive [...]?
c. 1552-1553
My only madness is to discern beauty, my only crime is to be sensitive to it. There is nothing in that of which I should be ashamed.
1762
It is not the province of the moralist to decide whether [men] reason more justly on this than on any other thing; it is enough that the original principles of censure or blame are uniform.
1751
The Muse: History
ca. 1865
The harmony of a concert that you listen to with delight must have the effect of a dreadful thunder on certain small animals.
1764
The single individual, who derives them through tradition and education, may imagine that they form the real motives and the starting-point of his activity.
1851/1852
The Union is free and happy like a small nation, glorious and strong like a great one.
1835-1840
It is universally admitted that partiality is incompatible with justice; preference given to one person over another, when there is no reason to prefer them, is unjust.
1861
Pair of bronze handles with satyrs
early 5th century BCE
There is no law in nature for the annihilation of any being, because nothingness has nothing beautiful or good, and the author of nature loves his work.
1674-1675
The intoxication of a high position makes [the leader] forget that he and his posterity may be the first victims of the power he builds.
1772
[Love] is that insatiable and infinite desire of the soul, [...] itself moved by a perpetual and never-satiated desire.
c. 253-270 AD
Since [...] social phenomena escape the experimenter's control, the comparative method is the only one suitable for sociology.
1895
Marble capital and finial in the form of a sphinx
ca. 530 BCE
He preferred the care of his life to the care of the empire. How much more would he have preferred the care of his life to lesser cares?
4th century BC
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
All of morality is a long, audacious falsification, by which a pleasure in the sight of the soul becomes possible.
1886
[Propositions] are sometimes made by reason of concomitance, [...] sometimes by reason of cause.
c. 1270
The Congregation of the Mother of God
1570
However, until now, no one had yet attempted to do the same for Theology.
1768
Man is visibly made for thinking; that is all his dignity and all his merit.
1670
A person who might have an infinity of real causes for displeasure, but who would strive [...] to turn their imagination away from them, never thinking of them, except when the necessity of affairs would oblige it...
1643-1649
To feel the need for a thing, one must have some knowledge of it.
1754
Portrait of a Young Boy
1636