Aesara of Lucania Quotes
Aesara of Lucania was a Pythagorean philosopher of the fourth or third century BC, possibly the daughter of the Pythagorean Aresas, and one of the few female Pythagoreans whose writings have come down to us in any form. The fragments of her On Human Nature, preserved in Stobaeus, present an early philosophical account of the soul as having three parts, the rational, the spirited, and the appetitive, harmonized by the central virtue of justice and modeled on the structure of the well-governed family and city. The quotes below are attributed to Aesara of Lucania, organized by topic.
Aesara of Lucania on Justice
-
Attributed to Aesara of Lucania:
“Justice in the soul is what justice is in the city, only smaller and more intimate.”
Aesara of Lucania on Mind
-
Attributed to Aesara of Lucania:
“The soul has three parts: the rational, the spirited, and the appetitive; their right harmony is justice.”
-
Attributed to Aesara of Lucania:
“He who has not put his own soul in order cannot put a city in order.”
-
Attributed to Aesara of Lucania:
“Music in the soul is the harmony of its three parts; without it, the soul is dissonant.”
Aesara of Lucania on Nature
-
Attributed to Aesara of Lucania:
“What we are by nature is the foundation; what we make of it is our virtue.”