Democritus Quotes

Greek philosopher (c. 460–c. 370 BC)

Democritus (c. 460 BC – c. 370 BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. He is popularly known as "the laughing philosopher" for advocating a cheerful outlook, and for his rhetorical use of irony and ridicule. A pupil of Leucippus, he was an influential pre-Socratic philosopher who formulated an atomic theory of the universe. Of his voluminous writings, only a few fragments of his ethical theory remain, with descriptions by other writers of his atomic theory.

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Native Name: Δημόκριτος

Alternative Names: Democritus of Abdera • Laughing Philosopher • Demokritos

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Πολλοὶ πολυμαθέες νοῦν οὐκ ἔχουσιν.

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

Man is a universe in little [Microcosm].

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.

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

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.

νόμωι (γάρ φησι) γλυκὺ καὶ νόμωι πικρόν, νόμωι θερμόν, νόμωι ψυχρόν, νόμωι χροιή, ἐτεῆι δὲ ἄτομα καὶ κενόν (Tetralogies of Thrasyllus, 9; Sext. Emp. adv. math. VII 135)

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

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