Greek Philosopher Quotes

Aristotle

Plato

Socrates

Epicurus

Thales

Democritus

Epictetus

Four things belong to a judge: to hear courteously, to answer wisely, to consider soberly, and to decide impartially.

Make a vessel of wax and put it in the sea, fastening its mouth in such a way as to prevent any water getting in. Then the water that percolates through the wax sides of the vessel is sweet, the earth stuff, the admixture of which makes the water salt, being separated off as it were by a filter.

Necessity is an evil; but there is no necessity for continuing to live subject to necessity.

No one punishes the evil-doer under the notion, or for the reason, that he has done wrong -- only the unreasonable fury of a beast acts in that way. But he who desires to inflict rational punishment does not retaliate for a past wrong, for that which is done cannot be undone, but he has regard to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished, and he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again.

A soul which is conversant with virtue is like an ever flowing source, for it is pure and tranquil and potable and sweet and communicative (social) and rich and harmless and free from mischief.

Nothing can come into being from that which is not, or pass away into what is not.

The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself.

The soul is identical with what produces movement in animals.

Leucippus' views as described by Aristotle

It would be strange if a single ear of corn grew in a large plain or there were only one world in the infinite.

Metrodorus of Chios

It is better to believe even what is impossible to our own nature and to men, than to be unbelieving like the rest of the world, we have learned; for we know that our Master Jesus Christ said, that 'what is impossible with men is possible with God' (Mt. 19:26)?

The most delightful of all music, that of your own praises.

All things which can be known have number; for it is not possible that without number anything can be either conceived or known.

The Aegean sea washes Greece on two sides: first, the side that faces towards the east and stretches from Sunium, towards the north as far as the Thermaean Gulf and Thessaloniceia, a Macedonian city...; and secondly, the side that faces towards the south, I mean the Macedonian country, extending from Thessaloniceia as far as the Strymon.

[Thales] first went to Egypt and hence introduced this study [geometry] into Greece. He discovered many propositions himself, and instructed his successors in the principles underlying many others, his method of attack being in some cases more general [i.e. more theoretical or scientific], in others more empirical [...more in the nature of simple inspection or observation].

Either history is really governed by laws, and in that case a truly human-activity is impossible, except perhaps in a technical sense; or human beings really make their own history, and then the task of theory will not be directed to discovering 'laws', but to the elucidation of the conditions with in which human activity unfolds.

Cornelius Castoriadis

The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is that we may listen the more and talk the less.

To a youth who was talking nonsense

As touching the gods, I do not know whether they exist or not, nor how they are featured; for there is much to prevent our knowing: the obscurity of the subject and the brevity of human life.

Every common mechanic has something to say in his craft about good and evil, useful and useless, but these practical considerations never enter into the purview of the mathematician.

The most holy mysteries are set forth in two modes: one by means of similar and sacred representations akin to their nature, and the other through unlike forms designed with every possible discordance and difference.

All things in the world of Nature are not controlled by Fate for the soul has a principle of its own.

What was always was, and always shall be. For, if it came into being, necessarily, before its generation, there was nothing; so, if there were nothing, nothing at all would come from nothing.

Melissus of Samos

Just as our soul, which is air, holds us together, so breath and air surround the whole cosmos.

Anaximenes of Miletus

Willingly would I burn to death like Phaeton, were this the price for reaching the sun and learning its shape, its size, and its substance.

Eudoxus of Cnidus

I pissed on the man who called me a dog. Why was he so surprised?

Diogenes of Sinope

That man does not possess his estate, but his estate possesses him.

Diogenes Laërtius