Philosophical Sayings
241 sayings found from the Early Modern era
Happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom to a man in the course of his life.
Our opinions are not in our own power; they are formed and governed much by circumstances that are often as inexplicable as they are irresistible.
Each year one vicious habit rooted out, in time might make the worst man good throughout.
What is wit, or wealth, or form, or learning, when compared with virtue?
Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech.
Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor liberty to purchase power.
Wish not so much to live long as to live well.
Wink at small faults; remember thou hast great ones.
In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride.
I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults of the first.
Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.
If a tree dies, plant another in its place.
Natural bodies are divided into three kingdoms of nature: viz. the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. Minerals grow, Plants grow and live, Animals grow, live, and have feeling.
The species and the genus are always the work of nature [i.e. specially created]; the variety mostly that of circumstance; the class and the order are the work of nature and art.
In natural science the principles of truth ought to be confirmed by observation.
When all the thoughts are concerning one thing and the person loses interest in other things, the melancholy begins.
When the spiritual light is concentrated in the brain, everything else must be sinking in the dark.
¿Qué tiene de extraño que yo no vea a Dios si no puedo ver siquiera al Yo que vive en mí?
Blessed be the Lord for the beauty of summer and spring, for the air, the water, the verdure, and the song of birds.
Nature does not make any leaps. (Natura non facit saltus)