Xenophanes
Xenophanes
Xenophanes of Colophon was a Greek philosopher, theologian, poet, and social and religious critic. Xenophanes lived a life of travel, having left Ionia at the age of 25 and continuing to travel throughout the Greek world for another 67 years. Some scholars say he lived in exile in Sicily. Knowledge of his views comes from fragments of his poetry, surviving as quotations by later Greek writers. To judge from these, his elegiac and iambic poetry criticized and satirized a wide...
NationalityGreek
ProfessionPhilosopher
horse believe men
There is one god, greatest among gods and men, who bears no similarity to humans either in shape or thought... but humans believe that the gods are born like themselves, and that the gods wear clothes and have bodies like humans and speak in the same way... but if cows and horses or lions had hands or could draw with the hands and manufacture the things humans can make, then horses would draw the forms of gods like horses, cows like cows, and they would make the gods' bodies resemble those which each kind of animal had itself.
men thinking honey
If God had not made brown honey, men would think figs much sweeter than they do.
horse hands lions
If cattle and horses, or lions, had hands...
men knows pure
Pure truth no man has seen, nor ever shall know.
eye light hair
The Ethiopians say that their gods are snub-nosed and black the Thracians that theirs have light blue eyes and red hair.
men research mortals
In the beginning the gods did not at all reveal all things clearly to mortals, but by searching men in the course of time find them out better.
fire each-day littles
The sun comes into being each day from little pieces of fire that are collected.
truth honesty done
No human being will ever know the truth, for even if they happen to say it by chance, they would not even know they had done so.
horse oxen atheism
If oxen and horses and lions could draw and paint, they would delineate the gods in their own image.
men
All men begin their learning with Homer.
men doe chance
Even if a man should chance to speak the most complete truth, yet he himself does not know it; all things are wrapped in appearances
men
Men always makes gods in their own image.
feet air earth
This upper limit, of earth at our feet is visible and touches the air, but below it reaches to infinity
science discovery long
Truly the gods have not from the beginning revealed all things to mortals, but by long seeking, mortals discover what is better.