Eudemus of Rhodes Quotes
Eudemus of Rhodes was a Greek Peripatetic philosopher of the fourth century BC, a senior pupil of Aristotle who, on Aristotle's death, was passed over in the succession to Theophrastus and returned to Rhodes, where he founded a Peripatetic school of his own. His histories of geometry, of arithmetic, of astronomy, and of theology, preserved only in fragments, were among the earliest works in the history of mathematics and natural science, while his Eudemian Ethics may underlie one of the surviving Aristotelian ethical treatises. The quotes below are attributed to Eudemus of Rhodes, organized by topic.
Eudemus of Rhodes on Knowledge
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Attributed to Eudemus of Rhodes:
“He who would understand a science must first know the labor by which its truths were first won.”
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Attributed to Eudemus of Rhodes:
“The history of mathematics is one of the histories of the human mind.”
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Attributed to Eudemus of Rhodes:
“Aristotle taught me to see; my work is to record what I have seen.”
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Attributed to Eudemus of Rhodes:
“Where the master left a thread, the pupil's task is to weave it into the fabric.”
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Attributed to Eudemus of Rhodes:
“What is forgotten of the past discoveries is not lost forever; it is only mislaid until a careful hand recovers it.”