Top 100 Democritus's Quotes: Famous Quotes & Sayings About Democritus's

#1. Where do we stand today compared to Greece circa 400 B.C.? Today's experiment-driven 'standard model' is not all that dissimilar to Democritus's speculative [sic] atomic theory.

Leon M. Lederman

#2. Democritus's work on the void was revolutionary.

Leon M. Lederman

#3. And were the vision of Democritus to have been adopted by Western civilization, instead of being cast aside for the pale views of Plato and Aristotle, we would be vastly further ahead today, in

Carl Sagan

#4. In a shared fish, there are no bones.

Democritus

#5. The wise man's home is the universe.

Democritus

#6. Immoderate desire is the mark of a child, not a man.

Democritus

#7. All things happen by virtue of necessity.

Democritus

#8. It is hard to fight desire; but to control it is the sign of a reasonable man.

Democritus

#9. If your desires are not great, a little will seem much to you; for small appetite makes poverty equivalent to wealth.

Democritus

#10. Sexual intercourse is a slight attack of apoplexy.

Democritus

#11. Men have made an idol of luck as an excuse for their own thoughtlessness.

Democritus

#12. The brave man is he who overcomes not only his enemies but his pleasures

Democritus

#13. The good things of life are produced by learning with hard work; the bad are reaped of their own accord, without hard work.

Democritus

#14. The void is 'not-being,' and no part of 'what is' is a 'not-being,'; for what 'is' in the strict sense of the term is an absolute plenum. This plenum, however, is not 'one': on the contrary, it is a 'many' infinite in number and invisible owing to the minuteness of their bulk.

Aristotle.

#15. The brave man is not only he who overcomes the enemy, but he who is stronger than pleasures. Some men are masters of cities, but are enslaved to women.

Democritus

#16. There is a feeling of deep universalism, in the wake of the splendid words of Democritus: "To a wise man, the whole earth is open, because the true country of a virtuous soul is the entire universe.

Carlo Rovelli

#17. There are many who know many things, yet are lacking in wisdom.

Democritus

#18. One great difference between a wise man and a fool is, the former only wishes for what he may possibly obtain; the latter desires impossibilities.

Democritus

#19. Throw moderation to the winds, and the greatest pleasures bring the greatest pains.

Democritus

#20. When we sense something, it is due to the movement of atoms in space. When I see the moon it is because "moon atoms" penetrate my eye.

Jostein Gaarder

#21. Many much-learned men have no intelligence.

Democritus

#22. Two of Epicurus's early influences, Democritus and Pyrrho, had actually journeyed all the way to what is now India, where they had encountered Buddhism in the schools of the gymnosophists

Epicurus

#23. Raising children is an uncertain thing; success is reached only after a life of battle and worry.

Democritus

#24. Men should strive to think much and know little.

Democritus

#25. 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.

Democritus

#26. We are born to inquire after truth; it belongs to a greater power to possess it. It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine knowledge.

Michel De Montaigne

#27. Moderation multiplies pleasures, and increases pleasure.

Democritus

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

Democritus

#29. People sometimes rationalize their greed by saying that it is all for the good of their children but this is nothing but an excuse they use to make their despicable actions appear respectable and praiseworthy.

Democritus

#30. The man enslaved to wealth can never be honest.

Democritus

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

Democritus

#32. The animal needing something knows how much it needs, the man does not.

Democritus

#33. The pride of youth is in strength and beauty, the pride of old age is in discretion.

Democritus

#34. Now as of old the gods give men all good things, excepting only those that are baneful and injurious and useless. These, now as of old, are not gifts of the gods: men stumble into them themselves because of their own blindness and folly.

Democritus

#35. Democritus believed that the soul was made up of special round, smooth 'soul atoms.' When a human being died, the soul atoms flew in all directions, and could then become part of a new soul formation.

Jostein Gaarder

#36. 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.

Democritus

#37. Hope of ill gain is the beginning of loss.

Democritus

#38. Do not trust all men, but trust men of worth; the former course is silly, the latter a mark of prudence.

Democritus

#39. The person who can laugh with life has developed deep roots with confidence and faith-faith in oneself, in people and in the world, as contrasted to negative ideas with distrust and discouragement.

Democritus

#40. Men will cease to be fools only when they cease to be men.

Democritus

#41. Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.

Democritus

#42. Anaximenes and Anaxagoras and Democritus say that its [the earth's] flatness is responsible for it staying still: for it does not cut the air beneath but covers it like a lid, which flat bodies evidently do: for they are hard to move even for the winds, on account of their resistance.

Aristotle.

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

Democritus

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

Democritus

#45. Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.

Democritus

#46. 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.

Democritus

#47. Life unexamined, is not worth living.

Democritus

#48. 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.

Democritus

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

Democritus

#50. By desiring little, a poor man makes himself rich.

Democritus

#51. Soul and intellect are just the same things.

Democritus

#52. Everything existing in the universe is the fruit of chance and necessity.

Democritus

#53. Men find happiness neither by means of the body nor through possessions, but through uprightness and wisdom.

Democritus

#54. Our sins are more easily remembered than our good deeds.

Democritus

#55. 'By convention there is color, by convention sweetness, by convention bitterness, but in reality there are atoms and the void,' announced Democritus. The universe consists only of atoms and the void; all else is opinion and illusion. If the soul exists, it also consists of atoms.

Edward Robert Harrison

#56. One should practice much sense, not much learning.

Democritus

#57. Democritus is studying philosophy here at Athens. This means that he delights in quarrels.

Gore Vidal

#58. It is greed to do all the talking but not to want to listen at all.

Democritus

#59. 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.

Democritus

#60. Democritus[3] says: "One man means as much to me as a multitude, and a multitude only as much as one man." 11.

Seneca.

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

Democritus

#62. My enemy is not the man who wrongs me, but the man who means to wrong me.

Democritus

#63. Medicine heals diseases of the body, wisdom frees the soul from passions.

Democritus

#64. It is godlike ever to think on something beautiful and on something new.

Democritus

#65. Envy is the cause of political division.

Democritus

#66. The first principles of the universe are atoms and empty space; everything else is merely thought to exist.

Democritus

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

Democritus

#68. Democritus (460-360 B.C.) - in reality there is nothing but atoms and space.

Will Durant

#69. According to Democritus, truth lies at the bottom of a well, the water of which serves as a mirror in which objects may be reflected. I have heard, however, that some philosophers, in seeking for truth, to pay homage to her, have seen their own image and adored it instead.

Charles Francis Richter

#70. The sweetest things become the most bitter by excess.

Democritus

#71. The structure underlying the phenomena is not given by material objects like the atoms of Democritus but by the form that determines the material objects. The Ideas are more fundamental than the objects.

Werner Heisenberg

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

Democritus

#73. Tis hard to fight with anger but the prudent man keeps it under control.

Democritus

#74. There are some men who are masters of cities but slaves to women.

Democritus

#75. No one regards the things before his feet, But views with care the regions of the sky.

Democritus

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

Democritus

#77. The wrongdoer is more unfortunate than the man wronged.

Democritus

#78. The word is the shadow of the deed.

Democritus

#79. Democritus says, "But we know nothing really; for truth lies deep down."

Diogenes

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

Democritus

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

Democritus

#82. Good means not merely not to do wrong, but rather not to desire to do wrong.

Democritus

#83. Reason is often a more powerful persuader than gold.

Democritus

#84. Democritus maintains that there can be no great poet without a spite of madness.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#85. [I would] rather discover one cause than gain the kingdom of Persia.

Democritus

#86. We think there is color, we think there is sweet, we think there is bitter, but in reality there are atoms and a void.

Democritus

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

Democritus

#88. You can tell the man who rings true from the man who rings false, not by his deeds alone, but also his desires.

Democritus

#89. More men have become great through practice than by nature.

Democritus

#90. 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.

Democritus

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

Democritus

#92. He [Democritus] is probably best known for two of the most scientifically intuitive quotes ever uttered by an ancient: 'Nothing exists except atoms and space, everything else is opinion' ...

Leon M. Lederman