Empedocles Quotes

16 Sourced Quotes

The blood around men's heart is their thinking.

Empedocles
But come, hear my words, for truly learning causes the mind to grow. For as I said before in declaring the ends of my words: Twofold is the truth I shall speak; for at one time there grew to be the one alone out of many, and at another time it separated so that there were many out of the one; fire and water and earth and boundless height of air, and baneful Strife apart from these, balancing each of them, and Love among them, their equal in length and breadth.

Empedocles
When they have been mixed in the form of a man and come to the air, or in the form of the race of wild animals, or of plants, or of birds, then people say that this is 'to be born', and, when they separate, they call this again 'ill-fated death'; these terms are not right, but I follow the custom and use them myself.

Empedocles
At one time through love all things come together into one, at another time through strife's hatred they are borne each of them apart.

Empedocles
These [elements] never cease changing place continually, now being all united by Love into one, now each borne apart by the hatred engendered of Strife, until they are brought together in the unity of the all, and become subject to it.

Empedocles
This is not lawful for some and unlawful for others, but what is lawful for all extends on continuously through the wide-ruling air and the boundless light.

Empedocles
For before this I was born once a boy, and a maiden, and a plant, and a bird, and a darting fish in the sea.

Empedocles
The powers spread over the body are constricted, and many afflictions burst in and dull their meditations.

Empedocles
Of all mortal things none has birth or any end in pernicious death, but there is only a mixing and a separating of what has been mixed, and to these people give the name 'birth'.

Empedocles
There is an utterance of Necessity, an ancient decree of the gods, eternal, sealed fast with broad oaths: whenever any one defiles his body sinfully with bloody gore or perjures himself in regard to wrong-doing, one of those spirits who are heir to long life, thrice ten thousand seasons shall he wander apart from the blessed, being born meantime in all sorts of mortal forms, changing one bitter path of life for another.

Empedocles
For all these sun and earth and sky and sea are one with the parts of themselves that have been separated from them and born in mortal things. In the same way, those that are more ready to combine are made similar by Aphrodite and feel mutual affection. But such as are most different from each other in birth and mixture and in the moulding of their forms are most hostile, quite inexperienced in union, and grieving deeply at their generation in strife, in that they were born in anger.

Empedocles
It is impossible for there to be coming into existence from what is not, and for what exists to be completely destroyed cannot be achieved, and is unheard of; for when and where it is thrust, there it will be.

Empedocles
Blessed is he who has acquired a wealth of divine wisdom, but miserable is he in whom there rests a dim opinion concerning the gods.

Empedocles
As painters, men well taught by wisdom in the practice of their art, decorate temple offerings they take in their hands pigments of various colours, and after fitting them in close combination, more of some and less of others, they produce from them shapes resembling all things, creating trees and men and women, animals and birds and water-nourished fish, and long-lived gods too, highest in honour; so let not error convince you in your mind that there is any other source for the countless perishables that are seen, but know this clearly, since the discourse you have heard is from a god.

Empedocles
For the male was in the warmer [places] ... this is the reason why men are dark, more powerfully built and hairier.

Empedocles
A borrowed light, circular in form, it revolves about the earth, as if following the track of a chariot.

Empedocles