Top 13 famous quotes by Anaxagoras
We review the best famous quotes of an often underrated Greek philosopher.
Anaxagoras (500 BC - 428 BC), also known as Anaxagoras of Clazomene, is one of the most renowned pre-Socratic philosophers. He was born in Clazomene, in present-day Turkey, although he lived his best years in Athens.
Among his prominent disciples we find Pericles, Protagoras and Thucydides, the playwright Euripides and it is suspected that he could also have counted among his students Socrates and Democritus.
Anaxagoras was the first thinker who spoke about the notion of "nous" (mind, thought) as an axial concept in his work. The only book of which fragments were preserved is the famous "On Nature".
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Great phrases of Anaxagoras of Clazomene
In today's article we will discover the best quotes of Anaxagoras and his famous quotations.which will allow us to delve into the work of one of the most underrated Greek philosophers.
1. If you deceive me once, it is your fault; if you deceive me twice, it is mine.
Perhaps the phrase of Anaxagoras that has come down to us the most. Certainly, to be fooled twice by the same person is not to have taken the appropriate measures.
2. Science is as harmful to those who do not know how to make use of it, as it is useful to others.
There are people who do not understand the true meaning of the scientific method.
3. Man is intelligent because he has hands.
Our capacities have their cause in the possibility of manipulating and constructing more and more complex objects.
4. Intelligence knows all things and ordered all things that are going to be and those that were and those that are now and those that are not.
One of those phrases about intelligence that links it with the creative gift.
5. All things participate in everything, while intelligence is infinite and governs itself and is not mixed with anything.
A proof of his philosophical monism.
6. The spirit governs the universe.
An essentialist phrase.
7. Intelligence is the purest of all things. It has total knowledge of everything and is the ultimate power.
Another famous quote from Anaxagoras on knowledge.
8. Nothing is born and nothing perishes. Life is an aggregation, death a separation.
Reflection on the animate.
9. When the voice of an enemy accuses, the silence of a friend condemns.
On friendship and betrayal, in one of the most reproduced phrases of Anaxagoras.
10. Movement defines what is alive.
Dynamism and its qualities, according to the Greek thinker.
11. Everything has a natural explanation. The moon is not a god, but a big rock and the sun, a hot rock.
One of the astronomical principles theorized by Anaxagoras.
12. Appearances are a vision of the unseen.
Intuition leads us to love or hate people we hardly know.
13. Men would live incredibly peaceful lives if these two words, mine and thine, were removed.
The notion of private property is one of the greatest causes of uneasiness and greed.
(Updated at Apr 14 / 2024)