1001Philosophers

Philo of Alexandria Quotes on Mind

Philo of Alexandria was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who synthesized the Hebrew scriptures with Greek philosophical thought, especially Platonism and Stoicism. This page collects quotes attributed to Philo of Alexandria on the topic of mind, drawn from across the philosopher's works.

Quotes

  • “The mind is the eye of the soul.”

    55.
  • Attributed to Philo of Alexandria:

    “What is essential is invisible to the eye; only the mind discerns it.”

  • “A Judge must bear in mind that when he tries a case he is himself on trial.”

    Special Laws , 1st century.
  • “The legislator of the Jews in a bolder spirit went to a further extreme and in the practice of his “naked” philosophy, as they call it, ventured to speak of him who was possessed by love of the divine.”

    Every Good Man is Free | 43.
  • “Wisdom … never closes her school of thought but always opens her doors to those who thirst for the sweet water of discourse, and pouring on them an unstinted stream of undiluted doctrine, persuades them to be drunken with the drunkenness which is soberness itself.”

    Every Good Man is Free | 13.
  • “The majority, who through the blindness of their reason do not discern the damages which the soul has sustained, only feel the pain of external injuries, because the faculty of judgment, which alone can enable them to apprehend the damage to the mind, is taken from them.”

    Every Good Man is Free | 55.