Parmenides Quotes
Parmenides of Elea was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of the late sixth and early fifth centuries BC, the founder of the Eleatic school and one of the most influential thinkers of the Pre-Socratic period. His one philosophical work, On Nature, surviving in roughly 150 fragments, is a hexameter poem in two parts: the Way of Truth, arguing that what is must be eternal, indivisible, unchanging, and one, and the Way of Opinion, an account of the deceptive world of mortal sense. The quotes below are attributed to Parmenides, organized by topic.
Parmenides on Mind
-
Attributed to Parmenides:
“It is the same thing to think and to be.”
-
Attributed to Parmenides:
“Thinking and the thought that it is are the same.”
Parmenides on Nature
-
Attributed to Parmenides:
“Coming into being is extinguished, and destruction is unknown.”
-
Attributed to Parmenides:
“What is is uncreated and indestructible, whole, of one kind, and unmoving.”
Parmenides on Truth
-
Attributed to Parmenides:
“What is, is; what is not, is not.”
-
Attributed to Parmenides:
“It is necessary to speak and to think what is; for being is, but nothing is not.”