Democritus Quotes

(Democritus said he would rather discover a single demonstration than win the throne of Persia.)

No one deserves to live who has not at least one good-man-and-true for a friend.

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

By convention sweet and by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention color; but in reality atoms and void.

Men in their prayers beg the gods for health, not knowing that this is a thing they have in their own power. Through their incontinence undermining it, they themselves become, because of their passions, the betrayers of their own health.

Many much-learned men have no intelligence.

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

If the body were to take the soul to court for the pains and suffering it had endured throughout its life, then if he were to be on the jury for the case he would gladly cast his vote against the soul inasmuch as it had destroyed some parts of the body by negligence or dissipated them by drunkenness, and had ruined and ravaged other parts by its pursuit of pleasures - just as he would blame the careless user if a tool or utensil were in a bad condition.

δοκεῖ δὲ αὐτῶι τάδε· ἀρχὰς εἶναι τῶν ὅλων ἀτόμους καὶ κενόν, τὰ δ'ἀλλα πάντα νενομίσθαι [δοξάζεσθαι]. (Diogenes Laërtius, Democritus, Vol. IX, 44)

Repentance for one's evil deeds is the safeguard of life.

'Tis not in strength of body nor in gold that men find happiness, but in uprightness and in fulness of understanding.

By convention is sweet, by convention is bitter, by convention hot, by convention colour, but by verity atoms and void

All who delight in the pleasures of the belly, exceeding all measure in eating and drinking and love, find that the pleasures are brief and last but a short while—only so long as they are eating and drinking—but the pains that come after are many and endure. The longing for the same things keeps ever returning, and whenever the objects of one's desire are realized forthwith the pleasure vanishes, and one has no further use for them. The pleasure is brief, and once more the need for the same things returns.

Many who have not learned wisdom live wisely, and many who do the basest deeds can make most learned speeches.

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