Aristotle vs Democritus on Knowledge

“All men by nature desire to know.”

Metaphysics Book I, 980a.21 : Opening paragraph of Metaphysics | Variant: All men by nature desire knowledge. | The first sentence is in the Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2005), 21:10

“The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.”

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

“Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history, for poetry expresses the universal and history only the particular.”

διὸ καὶ φιλοσοφώτερον καὶ σπουδαιότερον ποίησις ἱστορίας ἐστίν: ἡ μὲν γὰρ ποίησις μᾶλλον τὰ καθόλου, ἡ δ᾽ ἱστορία τὰ καθ᾽ ἕκαστον λέγει.

“My lectures are published and not published; they will be intelligible to those who heard them, and to none beside.”

Letter to Alexander the Great as quoted by William Whewell , History of the Inductive Sciences (1837), Ch. 2, Sect. 2

“Of things said without any combination, each signifies either substance or quantity or qualification or a relative or where or when or being-in-a-position or having or doing or being affected . To give a rough idea, examples of substance are man, horse; of quantity: four-foot, five-foot; of qualification: white, grammatical; of a relative: double, half, larger; of where: in the Lyceum, in the market-place; of when: yesterday, last-year; of being-in-a-position: is-lying, is sitting; of having: has-shoes-on, has-armour-on; of doing: cutting, burning; of being-affected: being-cut, being-burned.”

1b25-2a10; J. L. Ackrill (tr.), 1984-1995

“By convention sweet, by convention bitter; by convention hot, by convention cold; in reality, atoms and void.”

Fragment 9 (preserved by Galen)

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

Freeman (1948) [ 1 ] , p. 161 | Variant: The good things of life are produced by learning with hard work; the bad are reaped of their own accord, without hard work. [ citation needed ]

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

Now his principal doctrines were these. That atoms and the vacuum were the beginning of the universe; and that everything else existed only in opinion. (trans. Yonge 1853) | The first principles of the universe are atoms and empty space; everything else is merely thought to exist. (trans. by Robert Drew Hicks 1925) | Often paraphrased as "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything els

“Often paraphrased as "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.”

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

“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)”

Sweet exists by convention, bitter by convention, colour by convention; atoms and Void [alone] exist in reality. (trans. Freeman 1948) [ 1 ] , p. 92.