Democritus Quotes

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.

Fortune provides a man's table with luxuries, virtue with only a frugal meal.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

It is hard to fight against anger: to master it is the mark of a rational man.

Envy creates the beginning of strife.

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

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

All things happen by virtue of necessity.

Man is a universe in little [Microcosm].

The word is the shadow of the deed.

According to convention there is a sweet and a bitter, a hot and a cold, and according to convention, there is an order. In truth, there are atoms and a void.

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

Soul and intellect are just the same things.

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.

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

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

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.

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

The whole Earth is at the hand of the wise man, since the fatherland of an elevated soul is the Universe.

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

Word is a shadow of a deed.

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

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

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

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

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

In a shared fish, there are no bones.

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

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

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

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

[I would] rather discover one cause than gain the kingdom of Persia.