Philosophers From Greece

"Let every man remind their descendants that they also are soldiers who must not desert the ranks of their ancestors, or from cowardice fall behind. Even as I exhort you this day, and in all future time, whenever I meet with any of you, shall continue to remind and exhort you, O ye sons of heroes, that you strive to be the bravest of men. And I think that I ought now to repeat what your fathers desired to have said to you who are their survivors, when they went out to battle, in case anything happened to them. I will tell you what I heard them say, and what, if they had only speech, they would fain be saying, judging from what they then said. And you must imagine that you hear them saying what I now repeat to you:Sons, the event proves that your fathers were brave men; for we might have lived dishonourably, but have preferred to die honourably rather than bring you and your children into disgrace, and rather than dishonour our own fathers and forefathers; considering that life is not life to one who is a dishonour to his race, and that to such a one neither men nor Gods are friendly, either while he is on the earth or after death in the world below.Remember our words, then, and whatever is your aim let virtue be the condition of the attainment of your aim, and know that without this all possessions and pursuits are dishonourable and evil.For neither does wealth bring honour to the owner, if he be a coward; of such a one the wealth belongs to another, and not to himself. Nor does beauty and strength of body, when dwelling in a base and cowardly man, appear comely, but the reverse of comely, making the possessor more conspicuous, and manifesting forth his cowardice.And all knowledge, when separated from justice and virtue, is seen to be cunning and not wisdom; wherefore make this your first and last and constant and all-absorbing aim, to exceed, if possible, not only us but all your ancestors in virtue; and know that to excel you in virtue only brings us shame, but that to be excelled by you is a source of happiness to us.And we shall most likely be defeated, and you will most likely be victors in the contest, if you learn so to order your lives as not to abuse or waste the reputation of your ancestors, knowing that to a man who has any self-respect, nothing is more dishonourable than to be honoured, not for his own sake, but on account of the reputation of his ancestors.The honour of parents is a fair and noble treasure to their posterity, but to have the use of a treasure of wealth and honour, and to leave none to your successors, because you have neither money nor reputation of your own, is alike base and dishonourable.And if you follow our precepts you will be received by us as friends, when the hour of destiny brings you hither; but if you neglect our words and are disgraced in your lives, no one will welcome or receive you. This is the message which is to be delivered to our children."

"Parmenides: If the one is not, nothing is. Then, and we may add, whether the one is or is not, the one and the others in relation to themselves and to each other all in every way are and are not and appear and do not appear."

"Zeno: The many do not know that except by this devious passage through all things the mind cannot attain to the truth."

"Parmenides: Whatever the subject of your hypothesis, if you suppose that it is or is not, or that it experiences any other affection, you must consider what happens to it and to any other particular things you may choose, and to a greater number and to all in the same way; and you must consider other things in relation to themselves and to anything else you may choose in any instance, whether you suppose that the subject of your hypothesis exists or does not exist, if you are to train yourself completely to see the truth perfectly."

"Parmenides: I was pleased with you, Socrates, because you would not discuss the doubtful question in terms of visible objects or in relation to them, but only with reference to what we conceive most entirely by the intellect and may call ideas… But if you wish to get better training, you must do something more than that; you must consider not only what happens if a particular hypothesis is true, but also what happens if it is not true."

"Parmenides: If anyone, with his mind fixed on all these objections and others like them, denies the existence of ideas of things, and does not assume an idea under which each individual thing is classed, he will be quite at a loss, since he denies that the idea of each thing is always the same, and in this way he will utterly destroy the power of carrying on discussion... Then what will become of philosophy? To what can you turn, if these things are unknown?"

"Socrates: I think the most likely view is, that these ideas exist in nature as patterns, and the other things resemble them and are imitations of them; their participation in ideas is assimilation to them, that and nothing else. Parmenides: It is impossible that anything be like the idea, or the idea like anything; for if they are alike, some further idea, in addition to the first, will always appear, and if that is like anything, still another, and a new idea will always be arising, if the idea is like that which partakes of it."

"Parnenides: When there is a number of things which seem to you to be great, you may think, as you look at them all, that there is one and the same idea in them, and hence you think the great is one. But if with your mind's eye you regard the absolute great and these many great things in the same way, will not another great appear beyond, by which all these must appear to be great?"

"Parmenides: Just as things in a picture, when viewed from a distance, appear to be all in one and the same condition and alike."

"Parmenides: It is impossible to conceive of many without one."

"This is the end of the web of the statesman’s activity: the direct interweaving of the characters of restrained and courageous men, when the kingly science has drawn them together by friendship and community of sentiment into a common life, and having perfected the most glorious and the best of all textures, clothes with it all the inhabitants of the state, both slaves and freemen, holds them together by this fabric, and omitting nothing which ought to belong to a happy state, rules and watches over them."

"The whole business of the kingly weaving is comprised in this and this alone: in never allowing the self-restrained characters to be separated from the courageous, but in weaving them together by common beliefs and honors and dishonors and opinions and interchanges of pledges, thus making of them a smooth and, as we say, well-woven fabric, and then entrusting to them in common forever the offices of the state."

"The characters of self-restrained officials are exceedingly careful and just and conservative, but they lack keenness and a certain quick and active boldness. The courageous natures, on the other hand, are deficient in justice and caution in comparison with the former, but excel in boldness of action; and unless both these qualities are present it is impossible for a state to be entirely prosperous in public and private matters."

"Of these not right forms of government*… monarchy, when bound by good written rules, which we call laws, is the best of all the six; but without law it is hard and most oppressive to live with. The government of the few must be considered intermediate, both in good and in evil. The government of the multitude is weak in all respects and able to do nothing great, either good or bad, when compared with the other forms of government…; therefore of all these governments when they are lawful, this is the worst, and when they are all lawless it is the best."

"The tyrant has arisen, and the king and oligarchy and aristocracy and democracy, because men are not contented with that one perfect ruler, and do not believe that there could ever be any one worthy of such power or willing and able by ruling with virtue and knowledge to dispense justice and equity rightly to all, but that he will harm and kill and injure any one of us whom he chooses on any occasion, since they admit that if such a man as we describe should really arise, he would be welcomed and would continue to dwell among them, directing to their weal as sole ruler a perfectly right form of government. But, as the case now stands, since, as we claim, no king is produced in our states who is, like the ruler of the bees in their hives, by birth pre-eminently fitted from the beginning in body and mind, we are obliged, as it seems, to follow in the track of the perfect and true form of government by coming together and making written laws."

"No multitude is able to acquire any art whatsoever. Then if there is a kingly art, neither the collective body of the wealthy nor the whole people could ever acquire this science of statesmanship."

"Doing what is for the good of the people, this must be the truest criterion of right government, in accordance with which the wise and good man will govern the affairs of his subjects. Just as the captain of a ship keeps watch for what is at any moment for the good of the vessel and the sailors, not by writing rules, but by making his science his law, and thus preserves his fellow voyagers, so may not a right government be established in the same way by men who could rule by this principle, making science more powerful than the laws? And whatever the wise rulers do, they can commit no error, so long as they maintain one great principle and by always dispensing absolute justice to them with wisdom and science are able to preserve the citizens and make them better than they were, so far as that is possible."

"Law could never, by determining exactly what is noblest and must just for one and all, enjoin upon them that which is best; for the differences of men and of actions and the fact that nothing, I may say, in human life is ever at rest, forbid any science whatsoever to promulgate any simple rule for everything and for all time… So, that which is persistently simple is inapplicable to things which are never simple."

"The greatest and noblest conceptions have no image wrought plainly for human vision, which he who wishes to satisfy the mind of the inquirer can apply to some one of his senses and by mere exhibition satisfy the mind. We must therefore endeavor by practice to acquire the power of giving and understanding a rational definition of each one of them; for immaterial things, which are the noblest and greatest, can be exhibited by reason only, and it is for their sake that all we are saying is said. But it is always easier to practice in small matters than in greater ones."

"It is difficult to set forth any of the greater ideas, except by the use of examples; for it would seem that each of us knows everything that he knows as if in a dream and then again, when he is as it were awake, knows nothing of it all."

"No one should be discouraged, Theaetetus, who can make constant progress, even though it be slow."

"The attempt to separate everything from everything else is not only not in good taste but also shows that a man is utterly uncultivated and unphilosophical. The complete separation of each thing from all is the utterly final obliteration of all discourse. For our power of discourse is derived from the interweaving of the classes or ideas with one another."

"We certainly must contend by every argument against him who does away with knowledge or reason or mind and then makes any dogmatic assertion about anything. The philosopher, who pays the highest honor to these things, must necessarily, as it seems, because of them refuse to accept the theory of those who say the universe is at rest, whether as a unity or in many forms, and must also refuse utterly to listen to those who say that being is universal motion; … he must say that being and the universe consist of both."

"I shall have to test the theory of my father Parmenides, and contend forcibly that after a fashion not-being is and on the other hand in a sense being is not… For unless these statements are either disproved or accepted, no one who speaks about false words, or false opinion —whether images or likenesses or imitations or appearances— about the arts which have to do with them, can ever help being forced to contradict himself and make himself ridiculous."

"Those who purge the soul believe that the soul can receive no benefit from any teachings offered to it until someone by cross-questioning reduces him who is cross-questioned to an attitude of modesty, by removing the opinions that obstruct the teachings, and thus purges him and makes him think that he knows only what he knows, and no more."

"I do see one large and grievous kind of ignorance, separate from the rest, and as weighty as all the other parts put together. Thinking that one knows a thing when one does not know it. Through this, I believe, all the mistakes of the mind are caused in all of us."

"Neither perception nor true opinion, nor reason or explanation combined with true opinion could be knowledge… Then our art of midwifery declare to us that all the offspring that have been born are mere wind-eggs and not worth rearing… and if you remain barren, you will be less harsh and gentler to your associates, for you will have the wisdom not to think you know that which you do not know."

"Perception and knowledge could never be the same."

"They do not know the penalty of unrighteousness, which is the thing they most ought to know. For it is not what they think it is—scourgings and death, which they sometimes escape entirely when they have done wrong—but a penalty which it is impossible to escape… Two patterns, my friend, are set up in the world, the divine, which is most blessed, and the godless, which is most wretched… and their silliness and extreme foolishness blind them to the fact that through their unrighteous acts they are made like the one and unlike the other. They therefore pay the penalty for this by living a life that conforms to the pattern they resemble."

"It is impossible that evils should be done away with, for there must always be something opposed to the good; and they… must inevitably hover about mortal nature and this earth. Therefore we ought to try to escape from earth to the dwelling of the gods as quickly as we can; and to escape is to become like God, so far as this is possible… God is in no wise and in no manner unrighteous, but utterly and perfectly righteous, and there is nothing so like him as that one of us who in turn becomes most nearly perfect in righteousness."

"Ηow natural it is that those who have spent a long time in the study of philosophy appear ridiculous when they enter the courts of law as speakers… Those who have knocked about in courts and the like from their youth up seem to me, when compared with those who have been brought up in philosophy and similar pursuits, to be as slaves in breeding compared with freemen… The latter always have leisure, and they talk at their leisure in peace;… and they do not care at all whether their talk is long or short, if only they attain the truth. But the men of the other sort are always in a hurry and the other party in the suit does not permit them to talk about anything they please."

"Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder."

"No man of sense can put himself and his soul under the control of names... You must consider courageously and thoroughly and not accept anything carelessly."

"If the very essence of knowledge changes, at the moment of the change to another essence of knowledge there would be no knowledge, and if it is always changing, there will always be no knowledge, and by this reasoning there will be neither anyone to know nor anything to be known. But if there is always that which knows and that which is known —if the beautiful, the good, and all the other verities exist— I do not see how there is any likeness between these conditions of which I am now speaking and flux or motion."

"#:* Clement of Alex. Strom. v. 9, p. 682."

"Herakleitos prepared the way for the Stoic world-state by comparing "the common" to the laws of a city. And these are... more than a type of the divine law: they are imperfect embodiments of it. They cannot... exhaust it altogether; for in all human affairs there is an element of relativity (fr. 91). "Man is a baby compared to God" (fr. 97). Such as they are, however, the city must fight for them as for its walls; and, if it has the good fortune to possess a citizen with a dry soul, he is worth ten thousand (fr. 113); for in him alone is "the common" embodied."

"The wise man would not try to secure good without its correlative evil. He would not seek for rest without exertion, nor expect to enjoy contentment without first suffering discontent. He would not complain that he had to take the bad with the good, but would consistently look at things as a whole."

"The Ethics of Herakleitos are to be regarded as a corollary of his anthropological and cosmological views. Their chief requirement... keep our souls dry, and thus assimilate them to the one Wisdom... fire. That is what is... "common," and the greatest fault is to act like men asleep (fr. 94)... by letting our souls grow moist, to cut ourselves off from the fire in the world."

"The "common" upon which Herakleitos insists is... very different from common sense, for which... he had the greatest... contempt (fr. 111). It is... his strongest objection to "the many," that they live each in his own world (fr. 95), as if they had a private wisdom of their own (fr. 92); and public opinion is therefore... opposite of "the common.""

"The moral teaching of Herakleitos has sometimes been regarded as an anticipation of the "commonsense" theory of Ethics."

"The few fragments which deal with theology and religion hardly suggest to us that Herakleitos was in sympathy with the religious revival of the time, and yet we have been asked to consider his system "in the light of the idea of the mysteries.""

"He seems also to have said that it was absurd to celebrate the worship of Dionysos by cheerful and licentious ceremonies, while was propitiated by gloomy rites (fr. 127). According to the mystic doctrine itself, the two were really one; and the one Wisdom ought to be worshipped in its integrity."

"He comments upon the absurdity of praying to images (fr. 126), and... that blood-guiltiness can be washed out by the shedding of blood (fr. 130)."

"He gives a list (fr. 124) of some of the most characteristic religious figures of his time, and... threatened them with the wrath to come."

"With... reservations, Herakleitos was prepared to call the one Wisdom by the name of Zeus. Such... appears to be the meaning of fr. 65. It is not... to be pictured in the form of a man. In saying this, Herakleitos would only have been repeating... Anaximander and Xenophanes. He agrees further with Xenophanes in holding that this "god"... is one; but his polemic against popular religion was directed... against the rites and ceremonies... [rather] than their mere mythological outgrowth."

"Herakleitos speaks of "wisdom" or the "wise" in two senses. ...[H]e said wisdom was "something apart from everything else" (fr. 18), meaning ...the perception of the unity of the many ...[H]e also applies the term to that unity... regarded as the "thought that directs the course of all things." This is synonymous with the pure fire which is not differentiated into two parts, one taking the upward and the other the downward path. That alone has wisdom; the partial things we see have not. We ourselves are only wise in so far as we are fiery (fr. 74)."

"[W]hile to man some things are evil and some things are good, all things are good to God (fr.61). ...[B]y God ...Herakleitos meant fire. He also calls it the "one wise," and perhaps said... it "knows all things." ...[H]e meant to say ...in it the opposition and relativity which are universal in the world disappear. ...[T]o this ...frs. 96, 97, and 98 refer."

"At the upper end, where the two paths meet, we have the pure fire, in which, as there is no separation, there is no relativity."

"Herakleitos is not a believer in absolute relativity. The process of the world is not merely a circle, but an "upward and downward path.""

"A thing can become good only in so far as it is already evil, and evil only in so far as it is already good... everything depends on the contrast."