Democritus famous quotes

Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.
-- Democritus

#Inspirational #Happiness #Being Happy

Our sins are more easily remembered than our good deeds.
-- Democritus

#Deeds #Sin #Good Deeds

Education is an ornament for the prosperous, a refuge for the unfortunate.
-- Democritus

#Education #Ornaments #Unfortunate

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

#Wise #Country #Home

Everywhere man blames nature and fate yet his fate is mostly but the echo of his character and passion, his mistakes and his weaknesses.
-- Democritus

#Mistake #Passion #Character

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

#Motivational #Science #Reality

It is greed to do all the talking but not to want to listen at all.
-- Democritus

#Inspirational #Communication #Talking

Happiness does not reside in strength or money; it lies in rightness and many-sidedness.
-- Democritus

#Lying #Doe

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

#Children #Worry #Battle

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

#Animal #Men #Doe

Everything existing in the universe is the fruit of chance and necessity.
-- Democritus

#Science #Fruit #Chance

Moderation multiplies pleasures, and increases pleasure.
-- Democritus

#Moderation #Pleasure #Increase

It is better to destroy one's own errors than those of others.
-- Democritus

#Errors

It is godlike ever to think on something beautiful and on something new.
-- Democritus

#Happiness #Beautiful #Thinking

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

#Trust #Silly #Men

More men have become great through practice than by nature.
-- Democritus

#Men #Practice

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

#Desire #Littles #Poverty

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

#Space #Principles #Atoms

The wrongdoer is more unfortunate than the man wronged.
-- Democritus

#Inspirational #Men #Unfortunate

Good means not merely not to do wrong, but rather not to desire to do wrong.
-- Democritus

#Mean #Desire

Men should strive to think much and know little.
-- Democritus

#Men #Thinking #Littles

Hope of ill gain is the beginning of loss.
-- Democritus

#Hope #Loss #Gains

Life unexamined, is not worth living.
-- Democritus

#Live Life #Life Wisdom

Many much-learned men have no intelligence.
-- Democritus

#Men

Medicine heals diseases of the body, wisdom frees the soul from passions.
-- Democritus

#Passion #Medicine #Soul

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

#Anger #Fighting #Men

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

#Laughter #People #Laughing

There are some men who are masters of cities but slaves to women.
-- Democritus

#Men #Cities #Slave

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

#Education #Men #Latter

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

#Wise #Men #Land

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

#Sweet #Reality #Thinking

One should practice much sense, not much learning.
-- Democritus

#Practice #Should

Sexual intercourse is a slight attack of apoplexy.
-- Democritus

#Sex #Intercourse

The sweetest things become the most bitter by excess.
-- Democritus

#Excess #Bitter #Sweetest

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

#Wise #Men #Differences

Soul and intellect are just the same things.
-- Democritus

#Soul #Intellect

Virtue isn't not wronging others but not wishing to wrong others.
-- Democritus

#Forgiveness #Wish #Virtue

The wise man’s home is the universe.
-- Democritus

#Wise #Home #Men

Poor mind, from the senses you take your arguments, and then want to defeat them? Your victory is your defeat.
-- Democritus

#Mind #Victory #Want

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.
-- Democritus

#Country #Men #Egypt

Magnanimity consists in enduring tactlessness with mildness.
-- Democritus

#Mildness #Endure #Magnanimity

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

#Mean #Men #Finding Happiness

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

#Men #Giving #Useless

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

#Lying #Science #Reality

There are many who know many things, yet are lacking in wisdom.
-- Democritus

#Lacking

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

#Mean #Men #Enemy

Envy is the cause of political division.
-- Democritus

#Envy #Political #Division

To a wise and good man the whole earth is his fatherland.
-- Democritus

#Wise #Men #Good Man

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

#Treasure

The man enslaved to wealth can never be honest.
-- Democritus

#Men #Honest #Wealth

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

#Children #Men #Desire

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

#Beautiful #Effort #Toil

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

#Men #Cities #Brave

Sweet exists by convention, bitter by convention, color by convention; but in reality atoms and the void alone exist
-- Democritus

#Sweet #Reality #Color

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

#Hard Work #Good Things #Accord

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

#Reality #Body #Flow

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

#Children #People #Hypocrisy

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

#Intelligent #Men #Order

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

#Character #Men #Breeding

By desiring little, a poor man makes himself rich.
-- Democritus

#Life #Men #Vaccines

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

#Fighting #Men #Desire

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

#Suffering #Injustice #Unhappiness

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

#Blow #Men #Kind

Man is a universe in little [ Microcosm ].
-- Democritus

#Men #Littles #Microcosm

In a shared fish, there are no bones.
-- Democritus

#Bones #Fishes

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

#Men #Law #Envy

Disease of the home and of the life comes about in the same way as that of the body.
-- Democritus

#Home #Body #Disease

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

#Truth #Sea #Buried

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

#Women #Littles #Speak

Word is a shadow of a deed.
-- Democritus

#Shadow #Deeds

Throw moderation to the winds, and the greatest pleasures bring the greatest pains.
-- Democritus

#Pain #Wind #Moderation

I would rather discover one true cause than gain the kingdom of Persia.
-- Democritus

#Kingdoms #Gains #Causes

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

#Good Luck #Men #Idols

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

#Inspiration #Writing #Enthusiasm

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.
-- Democritus

#Moving #Science #Space

Men will cease to be fools only when they cease to be men.
-- Democritus

#Men #Fool

If you would know contentment, let your deeds be few.
-- Democritus

#Contentment #Deeds

The brave man is he who overcomes not only his enemies but his pleasures
-- Democritus

#Philosophical #Men #Brave

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.
-- Democritus

#Distance #Animal #Moon

All things happen by virtue of necessity.
-- Democritus

#Science #Virtue #Things Happen

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

#Men #Desire #Deeds

By convention sweet is sweet, by convention bitter is bitter, by convention hot is hot, by convention cold is cold, by convention colour is colour. But in reality there are atoms and the void. That is, the objects of sense are supposed to be real and it is customary to regard them as such, but in truth they are not. Only the atoms and the void are real.
-- Democritus

#Sweet #Truth #Real

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

#Mother #Daughter #Son

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

#Pride #Age #Youth

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

#Science #Differences #Atoms