Anaxagoras Quotes

5th-century BC Greek philosopher

Anaxagoras (c. 500 BC – 428 BC) was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Clazomenae in Asia Minor. He introduced the concept of Nous (Mind), as an ordering force in the cosmos. He regarded material substance as an infinite multitude of imperishable primary elements, referring all generation and disappearance to mixture and separation respectively.

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Native Name: Ἀναξαγόρας

Alternative Names: Anaxagoras of Clazomenae

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Mind is infinite and self-ruled, and is mixed with nothing, but is alone itself by itself.

The Greeks follow a wrong usage in speaking of coming into being and passing away; for nothing comes into being or passes away, but there is mingling and separation of things that are. So they would be right to call coming into being mixture, and passing away separation.

The sun provides the moon with its brightness.

And since these things are so, we must suppose that there are contained many things and of all sorts in the things that are uniting, seeds of all things, with all sorts of shapes and colours and savours

Wrongly do the Greeks suppose that aught begins or ceases to be; for nothing comes into being or is destroyed; but all is an aggregation or secretion of pre-existent things: so that all-becoming might more correctly be called becoming-mixed, and all corruption, becoming-separate.

All things were together, infinite both in number and in smallness; for the small too was infinite.

Thought is something limitless and independent, and has been mixed with no thing but is alone by itself. ... What was mingled with it would have prevented it from having power over anything in the way in which it does. ... For it is the finest of all things and the purest.

Anaxagoras Quotes

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