Thales of Miletus Quotes on Knowledge
Thales of Miletus (c.624–c.546 BC) — conventionally treated as the first Western philosopher and the founding figure of the Ionian natural-philosophical school — gave classical Greek thought its founding programmatic move from mythological to natural-philosophical explanation. The doctrines transmitted through Aristotle and the doxographical tradition (no fragments survive) — that water is the fundamental principle (archē) from which all things derive, that the magnet has a soul because it can move iron, that the earth floats on water — articulate the early conception of nature as an intelligible order admitting of unified explanation in terms of underlying material principles. The framework, prefigured by the Mesopotamian and Egyptian intellectual traditions Thales encountered in his travels, inaugurated the Greek philosophical tradition and the broader Western reception of Thales as the founder of the speculative inquiry the doxographers organized around his name.
Quotes
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“Water is the first principle of all things.”
As quoted in Aristotle , Metaphysics , 983b -
Attributed to Thales of Miletus:
“Know thyself.”
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“The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself.”
Γνῶθι σαυτόν -
“παντα πληρη θεων ειναι”
Panta plêrê theôn einai. | All things are full of gods. | As quoted in Aristotle , De Anima , 411a -
“Panta plêrê theôn einai.”
παντα πληρη θεων ειναι -
“Water is the first principle of everything.”
As quoted in Aristotle , Metaphysics , 983b -
“Σοφώτατον χρόνος· ἀνευρίσκει γὰρ πάντα.”
Time is the wisest of all things that are; for it brings everything to light. | As quoted in Diogenes Laërtius , The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers , I, 35 -
“Οὔ τι τὰ πολλὰ ἔπη φρονίμην ἀπεφήνατο δόξαν”
A multitude of words is no proof of a prudent mind. | As quoted in Diogenes Laërtius , The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers , I, 35; as translated in Dictionary of Quotations (Classical) edited by Thomas Benfield Harbottle, p. 455 | Also translated as: "Many words do not declare an understanding heart.