Date: 1748, 1750
"l'interêt est le plus grande monarque de la Terre" [Self-interest is the strongest monarch in the world]
preview | full record— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)
Date: 1748, 1749
"If reason is the slave of depraved, or distracted sense, how then can it be expected, that at that time it should be governor?"
preview | full record— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)
Date: 1748, 1749
"It is ridiculous to exclaim against the dominion of the will. For one order which it gives, a hundred times does it come under the yoke."
preview | full record— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)
Date: 1755
"The sovereign power represents the head; the laws and customs are the brain, the source of the nerves and seat of the understanding, will and senses, of which the Judges and Magistrates are the organs: commerce, industry, and agriculture are the mouth and stomach which prepare the common subsist...
preview | full record— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778)
Date: 1762
"C’est alors que la voix de la conscience reprendra sa force & son empire, c’est alors que la volupté pure qui naît du contentement de soi-même, & le regret amer de s’être avili, distingueront par des sentiments inépuisables le sort que chacun se sera préparé."
preview | full record— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778)
Date: 1762
"En méditant sur la nature de l’homme, j’y crus découvrir deux principes distincts, dont l’un l’élevoit à l’étude des vérités éternelles, à l’amour de la justice & du beau moral, aux régions du monde intellectuel dont la contemplation fait les délices du sage, & dont l’autre le ramenoit bassement...
preview | full record— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778)
Date: 1780-85; in French, 36 vols. 1749-1788
"Is it difficult to perceive that our ideas originate from our senses alone; that the objects we regard as real existences, are those concerning which the senses uniformly give the same testimony."
preview | full record— Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de (1707-1788)