Democritus Quotes

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

The wise man belongs to all countries, for the home of a great soul is the whole world.

Life unexamined, is not worth living.

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

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.

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

The first principles of the universe are atoms and empty space;

everything else is merely thought to exist.

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

The wrongdoer is more unfortunate than the man wronged.

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

Moving in space, the atoms originally were individual units, but inevitable they began to collide with each other, and in cases where their shapes were such as to permit them to interlock, they began to form clusters. Water, air, fire, and earth, these are simply different clusters of the changeless atoms.

Poverty in a democracy is as much to be preferred to what is called prosperity under despots, as freedom is to slavery.

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

The offender, who repents, is not yet lost.

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

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

Magnanimity consists in enduring tactlessness with mildness.

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

Nothing exists but atoms and the void.

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.

Do not trust all men, but trust men of worth;

the former course is silly, the latter a mark of prudence.

By desiring little, a poor man makes himself rich.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

If thou suffer injustice, console thyself; the true unhappiness is in doing it.

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

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

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

Man is a universe in little [Microcosm].

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

Hope of ill gain is the beginning of loss.

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.

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

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

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.

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

There are innumerable worlds of different sizes. In some there is neither sun not moon, in others they are larger than in ours and others have more than one. These worlds are at irregular distances, more in one direction and less in another, and some are flourishing, others declining. Here they come into being, there they die, and they are distroyed by collision with one another. Some of the worlds have no animal or vegetable life nor any water.

Word is a shadow of a deed.

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

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

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.

Moderation multiplies pleasures, and increases pleasure.

One should practice much sense, not much learning.

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.

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

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