Philosophers From Greece

"A single day among the learned lasts longer than the longest life of the ignorant."

"Riches are a cause of evil, not because, of themselves, they do any evil, but because they goad men on so that they are ready to do evil."

"When men were scattered over the earth, protected by eaves or by the dug-out shelter of a cliff or by the trunk of a hollow tree, it was philosophy that taught them to build houses."

"Virtue is the health of the soul."

"Ἀρίστων ὁ Χῖος ὁ Φάλανθος, ἐπικαλούμενος Σειρήν, τέλος ἔφησεν εἶναι τὸ ἀδιαφόρως ἔχοντα ζῆν πρὸς τὰ μεταξὺ ἀρετῆς καὶ κακίας μηδ᾿ ἡντινοῦν ἐν αὐτοῖς παραλλαγὴν ἀπολείποντα, ἀλλ᾿ ἐπίσης ἐπὶ πάντων ἔχοντα· εἶναι γὰρ ὅμοιον τὸν σοφὸν τῷ ἀγαθῷ ὑποκριτῇ, ὃς ἄν τε Θερσίτου ἄν τε Ἀγαμέμνονος πρόσωπον ἀναλάβῃ, ἑκάτερον ὑποκρινεῖται προσηκόντως."

"Perhaps some of you will think I am jesting, but be sure that all that I shall say is true. What has caused my reputation is none other than a certain kind of wisdom. What kind of wisdom? Human wisdom, perhaps. It may be that I really possess this, while those whom I mentioned just now are wise with a wisdom more than human; else I cannot explain it, for I certainly do not possess it, and whoever says I do is lying and speaks to slander me. Do not create a disturbance, gentlemen, even if you think I am boasting, for the story I shall tell does not originate with me, but I will refer you to a trustworthy source. I shall call upon the god at Delphi as witness to the existence and nature of my wisdom, if it be such. You know Chaerephon. He was my friend from youth, and the friend of most of you, as he shared your exile and your return. You surely know the kind of man he was, how impulsive in any course of action. He went to Delphi at one time and ventured to ask the oracle—as I say, gentlemen, do not create a disturbance—he asked if any man was wiser than I, and the Pythian replied that no one was wiser. Chaerephon is dead, but his brother will testify to you about this. [...] For a long time I was at a loss as to his meaning; then I very reluctantly turned to some such investigation as this; I went to one of those reputed wise, thinking that there, if anywhere, I could refute the oracle and say to it: “This man is wiser than I, but you said I was.”Then, when I examined this man— there is no need for me to tell you his name, he was one of our public men—my experience was something like this: I thought that he appeared wise to many people and especially to himself, but he was not. I then tried to show him that he thought himself wise, but that he was not. As a result he came to dislike me, and so did many of the bystanders. So I withdrew and thought to myself:“I am wiser than this man; it is likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas when I do not know, neither do I think I know; so I am likely to be wiser than he to this small extent, that I do not think I know what I do not know.”After this I approached another man, one of those thought to be wiser than he, and I thought the same thing, and so I came to be disliked both by him and by many others."

"Together with his victory and pursuit, having made himself master of the port, he laid siege to the Samians, and blocked them up, who yet, one way or another, still ventured to make sallies, and fight under the city walls. But after that another greater fleet from Athens was arrived, and that the Samians were now shut up with a close leaguer on every side, Pericles, taking with him sixty galleys, sailed out into the main sea, with the intention, as most authors give the account, to meet a squadron of Phoenician ships that were coming for the Samians' relief, and to fight them at as great distance as could be from the island; but, as Stesimbrotus says, with a design of putting over to Cyprus, which does not seem to be probable. But, whichever of the two was his intention, it seems to have been a miscalculation. For on his departure, Melissus, the son of Ithagenes, a philosopher, being at that time the general in Samos, despising either the small number of the ships that were left or the inexperience of the commanders, prevailed with the citizens to attack the Athenians. And the Samians having won the battle, and taken several of the men prisoners, and disabled several of the ships, were masters of the sea, and brought into port all necessaries they wanted for the war, which they had not before. Aristotle says, too, that Pericles had been once before this worsted by this Melissus in a sea-fight. … Pericles, as soon as news was brought him of the disaster that had befallen his army, made all the haste he could to come in to their relief, and having defeated Melissus, who bore up against him, and put the enemy to flight, he immediately proceeded to hem them in with a wall, resolving to master them and take the town, rather with some cost and time than with the wounds and hazards of his citizens."

"Οὕτως οὖν ἀίδιόν ἐστι καὶ ἄπειρον καὶ ἓν καὶ ὅμοιον πᾶν."

"Melissus, the son of Ithaegenes, was a native of Samos. He was a pupil of Parmenides. Moreover he came into relations with Heraclitus, on which occasion the latter was introduced by him to the Ephesians, who did not know him, as Democritus was to the citizens of Abdera by Hippocrates. He took part also in politics and won the approval of his countrymen, and for this reason he was elected admiral and won more admiration than ever through his own merit.In his view the universe was unlimited, unchangeable and immovable, and was one, uniform and full of matter. There was no real, but only apparent, motion. Moreover he said that we ought not to make any statements about the gods, for it was impossible to have knowledge of them.According to Apollodorus, he flourished in the 84th Olympiad."

"Melissus seems to infer that what really exists must be permanent and immutable, because it is too tough to pass away, and all change involves the destruction of a previous state of being. The argument depends upon investigating what we mean by saying something is real or exists. Permanence, Melissus suggests, is part of the concept of truth or existence. Is that so? How would we check up?"

"Καὶ Μέλισσος δὲ τὸ ἀγένητον τοῦ ὄντος ἔδειξε τῶι κοινῶι τούτωι χρησάμενος ἀξιώματι· γράφει δὲ οὕτως·᾿ἀεὶ ἦν ὅ τι ἦν καὶ ἀεὶ ἔσται. Εἰ γὰρ ἐγένετο, ἀναγκαῖόν ἐστι πρὶν γενέσθαι εἶναι μηδέν· εἰ τοίνυν μηδὲν ἦν, οὐδαμὰ ἂν γένοιτο οὐδὲν ἐκ μηδενός᾿."

"Οὐδ᾿ ἂν τὸ ὑγιὲς ἀλγῆσαι δύναιτο· ἀπὸ γὰρ ἂν ὄλοιτο τὸ ὑγιὲς καὶ τὸ ἐόν, τὸ δὲ οὐκ ἐὸν γένοιτο. Καὶ περὶ τοῦ ἀνιᾶσθαι ὡυτὸς λόγος τῶι ἀλγέοντι. Οὐδὲ κενεόν ἐστιν οὐδέν· τὸ γὰρ κενεὸν οὐδέν ἐστιν· οὐκ ἂν οὖν εἴη τό γε μηδέν. Οὐδὲ κινεῖται· ὑποχωρῆσαι γὰρ οὐκ ἔχει οὐδαμῆι, ἀλλὰ πλέων ἐστίν. Εἰ μὲν γὰρ κενεὸν ἦν, ὑπεχώρει ἂν εἰς τὸ κενόν· κενοῦ δὲ μὴ ἐόντος οὐκ ἔχει ὅκηι ὑποχωρήσει."

"Τοῦ γὰρ ἐόντος ἀληθινοῦ κρεῖσσον οὐδέν."

"[W]hen in company where people engaged themselves in what are commonly thought the liberal and elegant amusements, he was obliged to defend himself against the observations of those who considered themselves highly accomplished, by the somewhat arrogant retort, that he certainly could not make use of any stringed instrument, could only, were a small and obscure city put into his hands, make it great and glorious. Notwithstanding this, Stesimbrotus says that Themistocles was a hearer of Anaxagoras, and that he studied natural philosophy under Melissus, contrary to chronology; for Melissus commanded the Samians in their siege by Pericles, who was much Themistocles's junior; and with Pericles, also, Anaxagoras was intimate."

"This is indeed the first question we have to ask: is generation a fact or not? Earlier speculation was at variance both with itself and with the views here put forward as to the true answer to this question. Some removed generation and destruction from the world altogether. Nothing that is, they said, is generated or destroyed, and our conviction to the contrary is an illusion. So maintained the school of Melissus and Parmenides. But however excellent their theories may otherwise be, anyhow they cannot be held to speak as students of nature. There may be things not subject to generation or any kind of movement, but if so they belong to another and a higher inquiry than the study of nature. They, however, had no idea of any form of being other than the substance of things perceived; and when they saw, what no one previously had seen, that there could be no knowledge or wisdom without some such unchanging entities, they naturally transferred what was true of them to things perceived."

"A wonderful philosopher born in Cappadocia about the beginning of the first century; an ardent Pythagorean, who studied the Phoenician sciences under Euthydemus; and Pythagorean philosophy and other studies under Euxenus of Heraclea. According to the tenets of this school he remained a vegetarian the whole of his long life, fed only on fruit and herbs, drank no wine, wore vestments made only of plant-fibres, walked barefooted... He was initiated by the priests of the temple of Asclepios at Aegae, and learnt many of the "miracles" for healing the sick wrought by the god of medicine. Having prepared himself for a higher initiation by a silence of five years, and by travel, visiting Antioch, Ephesus, Pamphylia and other parts, he journeyed via Babylon to India. ... At Babylon he was initiated by the Chaldees and Magi. After his return from India, he shewed himself a true Initiate, in that the pestilences and earthquakes, deaths of kings and other events, which he prophesied duly happened. At Lesbos, the priests of Orpheus, being jealous of him, refused to initiate him into their peculiar mysteries, though they did so several years later."

"To speak falsely is the mark of a slave, but the truth is noble."

"He preached to the people of Athens and other cities the purest and noblest ethics, and the phenomena he produced were as wonderful as they were numerous and well attested.... After crossing the Hindu Kush, Appollonius had been directed by a king to the abode of the Sages, ... by whom he was taught unsurpassed knowledge. His dialogues with the Corinthian Menippus indeed give us the esoteric catechism and disclose many an important mystery of nature. Appollonius was the friend, correspondent and guest of kings and queens, and no marvelous or "magic" powers are better attested than his. At the end of his long and wonderful life he opened an esoteric school at Ephesus, and died aged almost one hundred years."

"Plato said that virtue has no master [Republic 617e]. If a person does not honor this principle and rejoice in it, but is purchasable for money, he creates many masters for himself."

"The natural philosopher Heraclitus said that man is naturally irrational. If this is true, as it is true, then everyone who enjoys futile glory should hide his face."

"You must shun barbarians and not govern them since, barbarians as they are, it is not right that they should receive a benefit."

"Now Euxenus realized that he was attached to a lofty ideal, and asked him at what point he would begin it. Apollonius answered: "At the point at which physicians begin, for they, by purging the bowels of their patients prevent some from being ill at all, and heal others." And having said this he declined to live upon a flesh diet, on the ground that it was unclean, and also that it made the mind gross; so he partook only of dried fruits and vegetables, for he said that all the fruits of the earth are clean. And of wine he said that it was a clean drink because it is yielded to men by so well-domesticated a plant as the vine; but he declared that it endangered the mental balance and system and darkened, as with mud, the ether which is in the soul. After then having thus purged his interior, he took to walking without shoes by way of adornment and clad himself in linen raiment, declining to wear any animal product."

"Approve and pursue the kind that is in accordance with nature. But avoid the kind that claims to be inspired: people like that about tell lies about Gods, and urge us to do many foolish things."

"All wish to live in the nearness of God, but only the Hindus bring it to pass."

"I saw the Indian Brahmans living on the earth and not on it, walled without walls, and with no possessions except the whole world."

"[Some] disobey the earth and sharpen knives against the animals to gain clothing and food. The Indian Brahmans disapproved of this personally and taught the Naked Philosophers of Egypt to disapprove of it too. From there Pythagoras, who was the first Greek to associate with Egyptians, borrowed the principle. He let the earth keep living creatures, but held that what the earth grows is pure, and so lived off that because it was sufficient to feed body and soul. Clothing made from dead creatures, which most people wear, he considered impure; he dressed in linen and, for the same reason, made his shoes of plaited bark. He derived many advantages from this purity, above all that of perceiving his own soul."

"Pythagoras said that medicine is the most godlike of arts. But if the most godlike, it should tend to the soul as well as the body, or else a living thing must be unhealthy, being diseased in its higher part."

"The soul that does not consider the question of the body’s self-sufficiency cannot make itself self-sufficient."

"The opinion of the Greek writers at the beginning of the Christian era may be quoted as showing the high estimation in which Indian astronomy was held. In the Life of Appollonius of Tyana, the Greek philosopher and astrologer, written by Philo stratus about 210 CE, the wisdom and learning of Appollonius are set high above his contemporaries because he had studied astronomy and astrology with the sages of India."

"The Visit of Apollonius to the North of India... While still a young man he heard of the existence and the Dwelling of the Brotherhood, from one who knew and collected strange tales. He paid little regard to it. But later... in the depths of his spirit decided to visit the North of India... The journey of Apollonius was long. He encountered numerous people upon his way. One of those whom he met... said, “I can be useful to you. He to Whom you journey is known to Me..." Apollonius never learned the name of the stranger. Reaching Taksila, Apollonius found the dwelling of the stranger, and... knocked... The door opened and a young Hindu invited Apollonius to enter... The door-keeper made a gesture and let Apollonius into a room where stood a table and two arm-chairs. Shortly the door opened and into the room entered a tall man, dressed in a kaftan with the insignia of a cavalry commander. Calling himself brother to the host, and as if knowing the purpose of Apollonius’s visit, he said, “My people shall accompany you tomorrow.” In the morning, in the courtyard, Apollonius saw several warriors and horses. They set out on their journey, hurrying towards the northern mountains. There the warriors left Apollonius."

"You request my presence at the Olympic Games, and for that reason you have sent envoys. For myself, I would come for the spectacle of physical struggle, except that I would be abandoning the greater struggle for virtue."

"Greet your son Aristocleides from me. I pray he may not turn out like you, since you, too, were once an irreproachable young man."

"If someone gives money to Apollonius, and the giver is someone considered respectable, he will take the money if he needs it. But he will not accept a fee for philosophy even if he does need it."

"In my judgment excellence and wealth are direct opposites."

"Make yourself known as a philosopher, that is a free man."

"Pleasure assails a man through each and every sense that he has; and while he must face and grapple with work, to pleasure he must give the widest berth possible and have none but unavoidable dealings with her. And herein the strongest man is indeed strongest, one might almost say, who can keep the farthest away from pleasures; for it is impossible to dwell with pleasure or even to dally with her for any length of time without being completely enslaved."

"When some people urged that it is impossible for man to live like the animals owing to the tenderness of his flesh and because he is naked and unprotected, [Diogenes] would say in reply that men are so very tender because of their mode of life. ... Man’s ingenuity and his discovering and contriving so many helps to life had not been altogether advantageous to later generations, since men do not employ their cleverness to promote courage or justice, but to procure pleasure."

"If in the guise of philosophers, they [declaim speeches] with a view to their own profit and reputation, and not to improve you, that indeed is shocking. For it is as if a physician when visiting patients should disregard their treatment and their restoration to health, and should bring them flowers and courtesans and perfume."

"When [Diogenes] observed how other men were harassed throughout their whole lives, ever plotting against one another, ever encompassed by a thousand ills and never able to enjoy a moment’s rest, nay, not even during the great festivals nor when they proclaimed a truce; and when he beheld that they did or suffered all this simply in order to keep themselves alive, and that their greatest fear was lest their so-called necessities should fail them, and how, furthermore, they planned and strove to leave great riches to their children, he marvelled that he too did not do the like, but was the only independent man in the world."

"Should you be willing to read [Xenophon's Anabasis] very carefully you shall discover how ... to deceive one’s enemies to their harm and one’s friends to their advantage, and to speak the truth in a way that will not pain those who are needlessly disturbed by it."

"You are devoted to interests from which it is impossible to gain intelligence or prudence or a proper disposition of reverence toward the gods, but only stupid contention, unbridled ambition, vain grief, senseless joy, and raillery and extravagance."

"Just as the good physician should go and offer his services where the sick are most numerous, so, said [Diogenes], the man of wisdom should take up his abode where fools are thickest in order to convict them of their folly and reprove them."

"[Diogenes] was surprised by the fact that had he claimed to be a physician for the teeth, everybody would flock to him who needed to have a tooth pulled; yes, and by heavens, had he professed to treat the eyes, all who were suffering from sore eyes would present themselves, and similarly, if he had claimed to know of a medicine for diseases of the spleen or for gout or for running of the nose; but when he declared that all who should follow his treatment would be relieved of folly, wickedness, and intemperance, not a man would listen to him or seek to be cured by him, ... as though it were worse for a man to suffer from an enlarged spleen or a decayed tooth than from a soul that is foolish, ignorant, cowardly, rash, pleasure-loving, illiberal, irascible, unkind, and wicked, in fact utterly corrupt."

"Te maris et terrae numeroque carentis arenae Mensorem cohibent, Archyta, Pulveris exiqui prope litus parva Matinum Munera, nec quidquam tibi prodest The sea, the earth, the innumerable sand, Archytas, thou coulds't measure; now, alas! A little dust on Matine shore has spann'd That soaring spirit; vain it was to pass The gates of heaven, and send thy soul in quest O'er air's wide realms; for thou hadst yet to die."

"The sum of his moral doctrine is; that virtue is to be pursued for its own sake in every condition of life; that all excess is inconsistent with virtue; that the mind is more injured by prosperity than by adversity; and that there is no pestilence so destructive to human happiness as pleasure."

"Concerning the philosophical tenets of Archytas... Aristotle, who was an industrious collector from the Pythagoreans, borrowed from him the general arrangements which are usually called his ten categories."

"It is probable that Aristotle was indebted to Archytas for many of his moral ideas; particularly for the notion which runs through his ethical pieces, that virtue consists in avoiding extremes."

"Even thee, thou measurer of earth and sea, thou counter of the sands, Archytas, how small a portion of earth contains thee now! It profits thee not to have searched the air and traversed the heavens since thou wert to die. So Tantalus, Tithonus, and Minos have died, and Pythagoras too with all his learning hath gone down once more to the grave. But so it is: all must die alike; some to make sport for Mars, some swallowed up in the deep: old and young go crowding to the grave: none escape: I too have perished in the waters. But grudge me not, thou mariner, a handful of earth: so may the storm spend itself on the woods while thou art safe and thy merchandize increases. Is it a small matter with thee to bring ruin on thy children? Yea, perhaps retribution awaits thyself: my curses will be heard, and then no atonement shall deliver thee. 'Tis but the work of a moment—thrice cast earth upon me and hasten on."

"His death, which is said to have been occasioned by a shipwreck, is made a subject of poetical description by Horace, who celebrates him as an eminent geographer and astronomer."

"Simplicius attributes to him a work on Opposites, to which he says that Aristotle was indebted for what he says on this subject in his Categories. His Harmonicon is quoted by Nicomachus in his Arithmetic. ...Fragments of the works attributed to him "On the Good and Happy Man," and "On Wisdom," are... extant. ...A letter of Archytas to Plato and Plato's reply are preserved by Laertius."