Anaxagoras
Anaxagoras
Anaxagoraswas a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. Born in Clazomenae in Asia Minor, Anaxagoras was the first to bring philosophy to Athens. According to Diogenes Laertius and Plutarch, in later life he was charged with impiety and went into exile in Lampsacus; the charges may have been political, owing to his association with Pericles, if they were not fabricated by later ancient biographers...
NationalityGreek
ProfessionPhilosopher
numbers would-be should
And since the portions of the great and the small are equal in number, so too all things would be in everything. Nor is it possible that they should exist apart, but all things have a portion of everything.
numbers together infinite
All things were together, infinite both in number and in smallness; for the small too was infinite.
The seed of everything is in everything else.
god great hot moon natural
Everything has a natural explanation. The moon is not a god, but a great rock, and the sun a hot rock.
death dying descent
The descent into Hades is much the same from whatever place we start.
death suicide descent
The descent to Hades is the same from every place.
greek becoming might
Wrongly do the Greeks suppose that aught begins or ceases to be; for nothing comes into being or is destroyed; but all is an aggregation or secretion of preexisting things; so that all becoming might more correctly be called becoming mixed, and all corruption, becoming separate.
science atoms impossible
Neither is there a smallest part of what is small, but there is always a smaller (for it is impossible that what is should cease to be). Likewise there is always something larger than what is large.
stars science earth
The forces of rotation caused red hot masses of stones to be torn away from the Earth and to be thrown into the ether, and this is the origin of the stars.
science stones littles
The Sun is a mass of fiery stone, a little larger than Greece.
moon heaven sun
The purpose of life is the investigation of the Sun, the Moon, and the heavens.
thinking greek passing-away
The Greeks do not think correctly about coming-to-be and passing-away; for no thing comes to be or passes away, but is mixed together and dissociated from the things that are. And thus they would be correct to call coming-to-be mixing-together and passing-away dissociating
lost lost-me athenians
It is not I who have lost the Athenians, but the Athenians who have lost me.
moon sun brightness
The sun provides the moon with its brightness.