Date: 1721, 1722

"This noble passion is indeed always engraved upon their hearts; but imagination and education mould it a thousand ways."

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1721, 1722

"In vain do we seek in deserts for a state of ease; temptations follow us every where; our passions, represented by the dæmons, never wholly quit us: these monsters of the heart, these illusions of the mind, these vain phantoms of error and falsehood, appear continually to us, to mislead us, and ...

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1721, 1722

"The soul of the sovereign is a mold in which all the rest are formed."

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1721, 1722

"On the contrary, the countries of the Mahometans every day become deserts, from an opinion, which, all holy as it is, yet is not without very hurtful consequences, when it is rooted in the mind."

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1721, 1722

"I have the feelings of humanity for the unhappy, as if none but they were men: and even the great, towards whom I find my heart as stone whilst they are in prosperity, I love them when they are fallen."

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1721, 1722

"The wife of a butcher, who happened to be present, took her part; and whilst one poured out a torrent of abuse against me, the other pelted me with stones as well as Dr.—, who was with me, who received a terrible blow upon the os frontal and os occipital, by which the seat of reason is very much...

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1721, 1722

"I think myself almost annihilated; and I do not become sensible of my existence, till a dismal jealousy comes to kindle and produce in my heart, fear, suspicions, hatred and regret."

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

Date: 1927

"As for the inner book of unknown symbols (symbols carved in relief they might have been, which my attention, as it explored my unconscious, groped for and stumbled against and followed the contours of, like a diver exploring the ocean-bed), if I tried to read them, no one could help me with any ...

— Proust, Marcel (1871-1922)

Date: 1927

"This book, more laborious to decipher than any other, is also the only one which has been dictated to us by reality, the only one of which the 'impression' has been printed in us by reality itself."

— Proust, Marcel (1871-1922)

Date: 1931

“Yes, let them all slip back once again into that closed world where, like their excreta, only what is organically and sensuously demonstrable is valid, let them feed off the routine detritus and mental excrement of what they call reality, for my part I will continue to regard The Monk a...

— Artaud, Antonin (1896-1948)