Top 93 Quotes & Sayings by Democritus - Page 2

Man is a universe in little [Microcosm].

Education is an ornament for the prosperous, a refuge for the unfortunate.

Moderation multiplies pleasures, and increases pleasure.

The man who is fortunate in his choice of son-in-law gains a son; the man unfortunate in his choice loses his daughter also.

Men have fashioned an image of Chance as an excuse for their own stupidity. For Chance rarely conflicts with intelligence, and most things in life can be set in order by an intelligent sharpsightedness.

Coition is a slight attack of apoplexy. For man gushes forth from man, and is separated by being torn apart with a kind of blow.

To speak but little becomes a woman; and she is best adorned who is in plain attire.

Virtue isn't not wronging others but not wishing to wrong others.

Word is a shadow of a deed.

Good breeding in cattle depends on physical health, but in men on a well-formed character.

We know nothing in reality; for truth lies in an abyss.

I am the most travelled of all my contemporaries; I have extended my field of enquiry wider than anybody else, I have seen more countries and climes, and have heard more speeches of learned men. No one has surpassed me in the composition of lines, according to demonstration, not even the Egyptian knotters of ropes, or geometers.

Nothing exists but atoms and the void.

Nature and education are somewhat similar. The latter transforms man, and in so doing creates a second nature.

It is hard to fight against anger: to master it is the mark of a rational man.

Beautiful objects are wrought by study through effort, but ugly things are reaped automatically without toil.

The offender, who repents, is not yet lost.

Nature . . . has buried truth deep in the bottom of the sea.

These differences, they say, are three: shape, arrangement, and position; because they hold that what is differs only in contour, inter-contact, inclination.

Poor mind, from the senses you take your arguments, and then want to defeat them? Your victory is your defeat.

Disease of the home and of the life comes about in the same way as that of the body.

Whatever a poet writes with enthusiasm and a divine inspiration is very fine. Earliest reference to the madness or divine inspiration of poets.

We know nothing accurately in reality, but [only] as it changes according to the bodily condition, and the constitution of those things that flow upon [the body] and impinge upon it.

Sweet exists by convention, bitter by convention, color by convention; but in reality atoms and the void alone exist

In a shared fish, there are no bones.

The whole Earth is at the hand of the wise man, since the fatherland of an elevated soul is the Universe.

The laws would not prevent each man from living according to his inclination, unless individuals harmed each other; for envy creates the beginning of strife.

No power and no treasure can outweigh the extension of our knowledge.

Fortune provides a man's table with luxuries, virtue with only a frugal meal.

To a wise and good man the whole earth is his fatherland.

According to convention there is a sweet and a bitter, a hot and a cold, and according to convention, there is an order. In truth, there are atoms and a void.

To a wise man, the whole earth is open; for the native land of a good soul is the whole earth.

If you would know contentment, let your deeds be few.