History of Greek Philosophy: Thales to Democritus |
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Anaxagoras Anaximander Anaximenes animal appearance Aristotle Athenian Athens Atoms body Burnet character Circ consciousness cult death Democritus Dionysus distinction divine doctrine Early Greek Philosophy earth Eleatic Eleatic School elements Eleusinian Eleusinian Mysteries Empedocles empty space evil existence experience external false opinion feeling Fire Flux Gods Greek religion Hellenic Heracleitus human idea infinite interest Ionian Leucippus living logical Logos Love matter means mechanical Melissus Milesian School Miletus mind modern moral motion movement Mysteries mystical nature object Olympian opposites Orphic Orphism Parmenides particles perhaps Pericles Persephone Persian phenomena physical Plato poet Pre-Socratic Philosophy principle problem Pythagorean Reality reason regarded religious seems senses separate Sicily simply solid sort soul speculation sphere Strife stuff substance teaching Thales theology theory things thinking thought tion trans truth turn Universe vision World-Stuff World-Substance worship Xenophanes Zeno Zeus
Popular passages
Page 128 - Would that strife might perish from among gods and men!" He did not see that he was praying for the destruction of the universe; for, if his prayer were heard, all things would pass away.
Page 123 - This world, which is the same for all, no one of gods or men has made; but it was ever, is now, and ever shall be an ever-living Fire, with measures of it kindling, and measures going out.
Page 133 - Those who speak with understanding must hold fast to what is common to all as a city holds fast to its law, and even more strongly. For all human laws are fed by the one divine law. It prevails as much as it will, and suffices for all things with something to spare.
Page 99 - ... if oxen and horses or lions had hands, and could paint with their hands, and produce works of art as men do, horses would paint the forms of gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, and make their bodies in the image of their several kinds. . . . The Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed; the Thracians say theirs have blue eyes and red hair.
Page 240 - ... and organs were blindly thrown and lumped together by the turmoil of Love and Strife, and those combinations which happened to be suited to their environment were preserved and crystallized into the existent species of plants and animals. Had this idea, which so strikingly anticipates the Darwinian theory of the struggle for life and the survival of the fittest, also attracted Democritus' attention, it should have dispelled any perplexities he might have felt about purposive activity.
Page 183 - It is not possible for us to set God before our eyes, or to lay hold of him with our hands, which is the broadest way of persuasion that leads into the heart of man.
Page 119 - God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger; but he takes various shapes, just as fire, when it is mingled with spices, is named according to the savour of each.
Page 135 - For the conflict of desire with reason is part of the cosmic struggle of opposites. Wisdom and reason are dryness and fire in the soul. "The dry soul is the wisest and best.
Page 125 - It is the same thing in us that is quick and dead, awake and asleep, young and old; the former are shifted and become the latter, and the latter in turn are shifted and become the former.
Page 194 - Many creatures with faces and breasts looking in different directions were born; some, offspring of oxen with faces of men, while others, again, arose as offspring of men with the heads of oxen, and creatures in whom the nature of women and men was mingled, furnished with sterile parts.