Quotes About Thales

#1. To Thales the primary question was not what do we know, but how do we know it.

Aristotle.

#2. When Thales was asked what was difficult, he said, To know one's self. And what was easy, To advise another.

Diogenes Laertius

#3. THALES. Maybe so. Still, I'll defend a life Lived worthily in its brief time on earth. PROTEUS. A life like yours, yes - it persists Well past the bounds of mortal days. Among the crowd of pale and drifting ghosts 8620 I've noticed you these many centuries.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

#4. Thales said there was no difference between life and death. Why, then, said some one to him, do not you die? Because, said he, it does make no difference.

Diogenes Laertius

#5. The belief in supernatural forces remains to this day a yoke on the neck of humanity, but at least Thales made it possible, for those of us who wish it, to be free of that yoke.

Victor J. Stenger

#6. No one can read the history of astronomy without perceiving that Copernicus, Newton, Laplace, are not new men, or a new kind of men, but that Thales, Anaximenes, Hipparchus, Empodocles, Aristorchus, Pythagorus, Oenipodes, had anticipated them.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

#7. The great sage Thales once put the general matter succinctly "Oh master," he was asked, "what is the most difficult thing to do?" "To know thyself", he replied. "And the easiest?" "To give advice to others.

Robert Trivers

#8. Narcotic greens narcotic greens like reeling firmaments disclose in their appearing randomness the sweetest means that you or she or any wandering Thales might choose to be wonder-struck with at the moment when we die

Marianne Bluger

#9. From the beginning philosophy sought for The order behind the disorder Thales sipped cheap wine And in this did divine: Why it's nothing at all but pure water!

Rebecca Goldstein

#10. We will know which stars to visit. Our descendants will then skim the light years, the children of Thales and Aristarchus, Leonardo and Einstein.

Carl Sagan

#11. He thought that when he had healed sufficiently, and withdrawn from the capital, he might write the magus a letter and open a correspondence on Euclid, or Thales, or the new idea from the north, that the sun and not the Earth might be the centre of the universe.

Megan Whalen Turner

#12. Although astronomy had made Thales rich, this has remained the stereotype of the philosopher - lost in the stars rather than having his feet on the ground.

Anonymous

#13. Thales was asked what was very difficult; he said: To know one's self.

Diogenes Laertius

#14. There is an important feature of modern science that is almost completely missing in all the thinkers I have mentioned, from Thales to Plato: none of them attempted to verify or even (aside perhaps from Zeno) seriously to justify their speculations. In

Steven Weinberg

#15. Time is the wisest of all things that are; for it brings everything to light.

Thales

#16. What man is happy? He who has a healthy body, a resourceful mind, and a docile nature.

Thales

#17. I will be sufficiently rewarded if when telling it to others you will not claim the discovery as your own, but will say it was mine.

Thales

#18. Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing.

Thales

#19. If there is neither excessive wealth nor immoderate poverty in a nation, then justice may be said to prevail.

Thales

#20. Hope is the most universal of human possessions.

Thales

#21. If there is a change, there must be some thing that changes, yet does not change

Thales

#22. Necessity is the strongest of things, for it rules everything.

Thales

#23. Intellect is the swiftest of things, for it runs through everything.

Thales

#24. We live not, in reality, on the summit of a solid earth but at the bottom of an ocean of air

Thales

#25. The past is certain, the future obscure.

Thales

#26. As brightness is to rustiness, so labor excelleth idleness.

Thales

#27. There are three attributes for which I am grateful to Fortune: that I was born, first, human and not animal; second, man and not woman; and third, Greek and not barbarian.

Thales

#28. Suretyship (Dogma) is the precursor of ruin.

Thales

#29. Who is happy? This is a person, who has a healthy body, is dowered with peace of mind and cultivates his talents.

Thales

#30. Place is the greatest thing, as it contains all things.

Thales

#31. Hope is the only good that is common to all men; those who have nothing else possess hope still.

Thales

#32. [One] who is healthy in body, resourceful in soul and of a readily teachable nature.

Thales

#33. Take Time by the forelock.

Thales

#34. All things are from water and all things are resolved into water.

Thales

#35. Many words are not proof of the wise man, because the sage only talk when it's needed, and the words are measured and corresponding with the need.

Thales

#36. A multitude of words is no proof of a prudent mind.

Thales

#37. God is the most ancient of all things, for he had no birth.

Thales

#38. Nothing is more active than thought, for it travels over the universe, and nothing is stronger than necessity for all must submit to it.

Thales

#39. The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself.

Thales

#40. Placing your stick at the end of the shadow of the pyramid, you made by the sun's rays two triangles, and so proved that the pyramid [height] was to the stick [height] as the shadow of the pyramid to the shadow of the stick.

Thales

#41. I did not become a father because I am fond of children.

Thales