Top 12 quotes by Empedocles

A great physician and politician who left us an exceptional philosophical legacy.

Empedocles of Agrigento (495 BC - 444 BC) was a prominent Greek philosopher and politician.

Ancient Greece, Empedocles played an important role in the development of rationalist philosophy. Heavily influenced by the ideas of Parmenides, he believed in the immutability of the existent. He was an exceptional orator and a renowned physician. He founded the Sicilian school of medicine, being considered one of the most intrepid and prolific researchers of his time.

• "The 100 best phrases of Aristotle".
• "The 23 best 23 famous phrases of Plutarch".

Famous quotes by Empedocles

There is usually a consensus that the cause of his death was provoked. Empedocles committed suicide. The only works of which there are records are two poems, called "On the nature of beings" and "The purifications".

In this article we will discover this Greek thinker. Through the 12 best phrases of Empedocles we will travel in time to know the ideas of this exceptional thinker and man of science. and man of science.

1. It is impossible for anything to become what it in no way is.

On the essence of things.

2. Blessed is he who has acquired a wealth of divine wisdom, but miserable is he who rests therein a tenuous opinion concerning the gods.

A great phrase about divine wisdom.

3. The sea is the sweat of the earth.

Excellent metaphor of great poetic depth.

4. These elements never cease to change places continually, now they are all united by love into one, now each apart by hatred engendered in strife, until they are reunited in the unity of the whole and conform to it.

A sample of his philosophical monism.

5. Happy is he who has gained the great number of divine thoughts, woe to him whose beliefs about the gods are obscure!

A theistic thought of the great Empedocles.

6. The nature of God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.

One of those sentences of Empedocles in which he describes his vision of the Superior Being.

7. What is right could be well said even twice.

On truth and its discursiveness.

8. It is convenient to repeat useful words.

Very much in line with the previous sentence.

9. No mortal thing has a beginning or end in death destruction; there is only a mixture and separation of the mixed, but by mortal men these processes are called "beginnings".

In this sentence he shows us his position on the immutability of matter.

10. The force that unites all the elements to be all things is love, also called Aphrodite. Love unites distinct elements into a unity, to become a composite thing. Love is the same force that human beings find at work, whenever they feel joy, love and peace. Struggle, on the other hand, is the force responsible for dissolution.

A famous quote from Empedocles that leads us to reflect deeply.

11. We see earth for earth, water for water, divine air for air, and destructive fire for fire. We understand love for love and hate for hate.

On selfhood.

12. I have been, before, boy and girl, bush, bird and fish inhabiting the sea.

Another phrase of Parmenides that tells us about monism.