There are sensitive egoists, [...] who suffer from the misfortune of those who love them, because it disturbs their own peace of mind.
1926
It is this philosophy that must be acquired above all; [...] that with which you must begin.
63-64 AD
As the gods acquire more knowledge and authority, they become more fearsome.
1757
We have a very gentle medicine, philosophy: for with other remedies, one feels the pleasure only after the cure, but this one pleases and cures at the same time.
1580
Portrait of a Woman
late 1560s
It often happens that we are esteemed in proportion as we esteem ourselves.
1746
the public square of Syracuse had become deserted, and the grass there was so high that it served as pasture for the horses, and as a bed for the grooms.
100-120 AD
If necessity is referred only to phenomena, and freedom only to things in themselves, there is no contradiction [...].
1783
It seems that this new morality has made men weaker, and has delivered the world to audacious scoundrels.
1513-1519
A Bouquet of Flowers in a Crystal Vase
1662
I learned not to believe anything too firmly of which I had been persuaded only by example and custom.
1637
To hate one's soul is to resist its guilty desires. [...] When our soul suggests thoughts contrary to the law of God, we must reject it with horror.
1263-1264
The diversion is a particularly shameless stratagem when it consists of completely abandoning the subject to raise a personal objection.
1830-1831
The ruin of [Fan] did not take my life. It is not certain that the prosperity of [Tch'ou] will preserve yours.
4th century BC
Bronze kyathos (single-handled jug)
ca. 450–400 BCE
Life is not an argument; among the conditions of life might be error.
1882
There are men who judge what is unseen by what is seen; the greatness [...] of the mind [...] by the nobility, dignities, and riches [...]. One is often measured by the other.
1674-1675
The sovereign, in a State, is the interpreter of the law, because his authority alone defends it, and his testimony alone establishes it.
1670
A divided city is half taken.
c. 1552-1553
Scene in a Harem (Un Envoi de Serbie)
1876
Thought is an action and cannot be the essence: but it is an essential action, and all substances have such.
1704
It is therefore in the decomposition of the proposition into its elements that the separation between the brute and the intelligent species par excellence is marked.
1803
The most dissolute men [...] corrupt public morals less than those whose vices are allied with some virtues, and who are only partly wicked.
1623
Does one judge according to one's sensations [...]? The judgments are always right. Does one judge according to one's prejudices, that is to say, according to others? The judgments are always false.
1772
Saint Nicholas of Tolentino Reviving a Child
ca. 1530
it is not permissible for an inspired author to contradict himself so shamefully.
1764
Classical paganism was characterized by unity; dualism, division, disagreement in all things are the character of Christianity.
1842-1845
The study of modes of production constitutes [...] the materialist supersession of philosophy. [...] [Philosophy] is already superseded in the real development of which it was only the distorted reflection.
1841
The one who is at the very bottom, whom no one pities, who has the power to mistreat no one [...], their suffering remains within them and poisons them.
1947
Bronze statuette of a dancing Lar
1st century CE
Such a dogma is good only in a Theocratic Government; in any other, it is pernicious.
1762
Of Essence and Quality.
c. 253-270 AD
Pleasure and Pain are two Ideas, one or the other of which is joined to almost all our Ideas, both those that come to us by sensation and those that we receive by reflection.
1689
Science can and should only retain from reality that which is spread out in space, homogeneous, measurable, and visual.
1922
Bronze statuette of a bull
7th century BCE
It is always pleasure and pain that are the prime mover of [our] faculties.
1754
In the act of exchange, the various agents remain outside of one another and, when the operation is over, each one finds himself and takes himself back entirely.
1893
And if it should happen that their number reaches fifteen or sixteen hundred, then they could be posted at the corners and in the middle of the streets, every three hundred paces.
1662
If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life.
c. 375 BC
Upper right corner of a marble sarcophagus: head of a Black African and a maenad
1st quarter of the 3rd century CE
If it is not certain that [the penitentiary system] makes the inmates better than they were, it is at least certain that it prevents them from becoming worse; and that is an immense result.
1864-1866
We know that the jackdaw is naturally a thief: to entrust gold to it would be to want to lose it.
59 BC
And what will one get out of it? One will become more talkative and more tiresome than one is now.
c. 108 AD
Reason makes itself heard intermittently. The persistent heart speaks ceaselessly.
1757
Terracotta statuette of a veiled woman
2nd century BCE
It is for the sake of wicked men that laws must be established.
1869
[Reason] is of all things in this world the most harmful to a reasonable being: God leaves reason only to those he wishes to damn, he removes it in his goodness from those he wishes to save.
1768
Two things identical to a third are identical to each other.
End of the 4th century BC
It is perhaps no less difficult to define than it is rare to possess a gift of this nature [the fiery spirit].
1636
Stone spindle whorl
ca. 2400–1900 BCE