Empedocles quotes

Empedocles was an ancient Greek philosopher, scientist, and poet from Sicily, renowned for his theory of the four classical elements. His work sought to explain the nature of the universe through earth, air, fire, and water as fundamental substances. He is also credited with early ideas about forces similar to love and strife, influencing later philosophical thought. Here are 22 of his quotes:

The sea is the sweat of the earth.

Empedocles

The nature of God is a circle of which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere.

Empedocles

The sight of both [eyes] becomes one.

Empedocles

For already, sometime, I have been a boy and a girl, a shrub, a bird, and a silent fish in the sea.

Empedocles

From such honor and such a height of fortune am I, thus fallen to earth, cast down amongst mortals.

Empedocles

And I will tell you something else: there is no birth of all mortal things, nor any end in wretched death, but only a mixing and dissolution of mixtures; 'birth' is so called on the part of mankind.

Empedocles

Fools -- for their thoughts are not well-considered who suppose that not-being exists or that anything dies and is wholly annihilated.

Empedocles

Nothing of the All is either empty or superfluous.

Empedocles

As it has long been and shall be, not ever, I think, will unfathomable time be emptied of either.

Empedocles

For one by one did quake the limbs of God.

Empedocles

But what is lawful for all extends across wide-ruling aether and, without cease, through endless sunshine.

Empedocles

Happy is he who has gained the wealth of divine thoughts, wretched is he whose beliefs about the gods are dark.

Empedocles

Hear first the four roots of all things: shining Zeus, life-bringing Hera, Aidoneus, and Nestis, who wets with tears the mortal wellspring.

Empedocles

Fortunate is he who has acquired a wealth of divine understanding, but wretched the one whose interest lies in shadowy conjectures about divinities.

Empedocles

I shall speak twice over. As upon a time One came to be alone out of many, so at another time it divided to be many out of One: fire and water and earth and the limitless vault of air, and wretched Strife apart from these, in equal measure to everything, and Love among them, equal in length and breadth.

Empedocles

Far from the Blest; such is the path I tread.

Empedocles

He must for seasons thrice ten thousand roam.

Empedocles

I too a wanderer and exile from heaven.

Empedocles

Fast from vice.

Empedocles