1001Philosophers

Gemistus Pletho Quotes on Knowledge

George Gemistos, who took the name Plethon to recall his master Plato, was a late-Byzantine philosopher of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the most original Platonist of the Greek-speaking world on the eve of the fall of Constantinople. This page collects quotes attributed to Gemistus Pletho on the topic of knowledge, drawn from across the philosopher's works.

Quotes

  • Attributed to Gemistus Pletho:

    “Plato should be set above Aristotle; the master is greater than the pupil.”

  • Attributed to Gemistus Pletho:

    “A people that has lost its philosophical memory has lost the means of its political renewal.”

  • Attributed to Gemistus Pletho:

    “Constantinople may yet be saved by the same wisdom by which Athens once was great.”

  • “Ἐσμὲν γὰρ οὖν... Ἕλληνες τὸ γένος, ὡς ἥ τε φωνὴ καὶ ἡ πάτριος παιδεία μαρτυρεῖ.”

    We are Hellenes by race and culture. | Steven Runciman , The Great Church in Captivity (Cambridge UP, 1968) p. 122. Dieter Reinsch , "Η θεώρηση της πολιτικής και πολιτιστικής φυσιογνωμίας των Ελλήνων στους ιστορικούς της Άλωσης", in Études Balkaniques , Vol. 6: Byzance et l'hellénisme: l'identité grecque au Moyen Âge (Association Pierre Belon, 1999) p. 74
  • “We are Hellenes by race and culture.”

    Ἐσμὲν γὰρ οὖν... Ἕλληνες τὸ γένος, ὡς ἥ τε φωνὴ καὶ ἡ πάτριος παιδεία μαρτυρεῖ.
  • “Steven Runciman , The Great Church in Captivity (Cambridge UP, 1968) p. 122. Dieter Reinsch , "Η θεώρηση της πολιτικής και πολιτιστικής φυσιογνωμίας των Ελλήνων στους ιστορικούς της Άλωσης", in Études Balkaniques , Vol. 6: Byzance et l'hellénisme: l'identité grecque au Moyen Âge (Association Pierre Belon, 1999) p. 74”

    Ἐσμὲν γὰρ οὖν... Ἕλληνες τὸ γένος, ὡς ἥ τε φωνὴ καὶ ἡ πάτριος παιδεία μαρτυρεῖ.