Anaxagoras Quotes
Anaxagoras of Clazomenae was an ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosopher of the 5th century BC, born in Ionia and active for many years in Athens, where he was a friend and reportedly a teacher of Pericles. He held that the cosmos is composed of an infinite number of qualitatively distinct elementary particles, each containing a portion of all things, and that these particles were originally ordered into the perceptible cosmos by a cosmic Mind (nous). The quotes below are attributed to Anaxagoras, organized by topic.
Browse Anaxagoras by topic
Anaxagoras on Justice
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“The Greeks follow a wrong usage in speaking of coming into being and passing away; for nothing comes into being or passes away, but there is mingling and separation of things that are. So they would be right to call coming into being mixture, and passing away separation.”
Frag. B 17, quoted in John Burnet 's Early Greek Philosophy , (1920), Chapter 6.
Anaxagoras on Knowledge
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“Wrongly do the Greeks suppose that aught begins or ceases to be; for nothing comes into being or is destroyed; but all is an aggregation or secretion of pre-existent things: so that all-becoming might more correctly be called becoming-mixed, and all corruption, becoming-separate.”
quoted in Heinrich Ritter , Tr. from German by Alexander James William Morrison, The History of Ancient Philosophy , Vol.1 (1838) -
“All things were together, infinite both in number and in smallness; for the small too was infinite.”
Frag. B 1, quoted in John Burnet 's Early Greek Philosophy , (1920), Chapter 6. -
“Frag. B 1, quoted in John Burnet 's Early Greek Philosophy , (1920), Chapter 6.”
All things were together, infinite both in number and in smallness; for the small too was infinite. -
“And since these things are so, we must suppose that there are contained many things and of all sorts in the things that are uniting, seeds of all things, with all sorts of shapes and colours and savours”
Frag. B 4, quoted in John Burnet 's Early Greek Philosophy , (1920), Chapter 6. -
“Frag. B 4, quoted in John Burnet 's Early Greek Philosophy , (1920), Chapter 6.”
And since these things are so, we must suppose that there are contained many things and of all sorts in the things that are uniting, seeds of all things, with all sorts of shapes and colours and savours -
“Frag. B 12, quoted in John Burnet 's Early Greek Philosophy , (1920), Chapter 6.”
Mind is infinite and self-ruled, and is mixed with nothing, but is alone itself by itself.
Anaxagoras on Life
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Attributed to Anaxagoras:
“I was born to contemplate the heavens.”
Anaxagoras on Mind
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Attributed to Anaxagoras:
“Mind alone is unmixed and pure, and rules over all things.”
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“Mind is infinite and self-ruled, and is mixed with nothing, but is alone itself by itself.”
Frag. B 12, quoted in John Burnet 's Early Greek Philosophy , (1920), Chapter 6. -
“Thought is something limitless and independent, and has been mixed with no thing but is alone by itself. ... What was mingled with it would have prevented it from having power over anything in the way in which it does. ... For it is the finest of all things and the purest.”
Frag. B12, in Jonathan Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy (1984), p. 190.
Anaxagoras on Nature
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Attributed to Anaxagoras:
“All things were together, infinite both in number and in smallness; then Mind came and arranged them.”
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Attributed to Anaxagoras:
“In everything there is a portion of everything.”
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Attributed to Anaxagoras:
“The sun is a fiery stone larger than the Peloponnese.”