Empedocles of Agrigento (495 BC – 444 BC) was a prominent Greek philosopher and politician.
Ancient Greece, Empedocles played an important role in the development of rationalist philosophy. Greatly influenced by the ideas of Parmenides, he believed in the immutability of what exists. He was an exceptional speaker and a renowned doctor. He founded the Sicilian school of medicine, being considered one of the most intrepid and prolific researchers of his time.
There is usually a consensus that the cause of his death was provoked. Empedocles committed suicide. The only works of which there is evidence are two poems, called “On the nature of beings” and “The purifications”.
In this article we are going to discover this Greek thinker. Through the 12 best phrases of Empedocles we will travel in time to learn about the ideas of this exceptional thinker and man of science.
1. It is impossible for something to become what it in no way is.
About the essence of things.
2. Blessed is he who has acquired a wealth of divine wisdom, but miserable is he who has a tenuous opinion regarding the gods.
A great phrase about divine wisdom.
3. The sea is the sweat of the earth.
Excellent metaphor of great poetic significance.
4. These elements never cease to change places continually, now they are all united by love into one, now each one apart by hatred bred in strife, until they are reunited in the unity of the whole and conformable to it.
A sample of his philosophical monism.
5. Happy is he who has gained the great quantity of divine thoughts, woe to him whose beliefs about the gods are dark!
A theistic thought of the great Empedocles.
6. The nature of God is a circle whose center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.
One of those phrases from Empedocles in which he describes his vision of the Higher Being.
7. What is correct could be well said even twice.
About the truth and its discursivity.
8. It is advisable to repeat useful words.
Very much in line with the previous sentence.
9. No mortal thing has a beginning or end in death destruction; There is only a mixing and separation of the mixed, but by mortal men these processes are called “beginnings.”
In this phrase he shows us his position on the immutability of matter.
10. The force that unites all elements to be all things is love, also called Aphrodite. Love unites different elements into a unit, to become a composite thing. Love is the same force that human beings find at work, whenever they feel joy, love and peace. Struggle, on the other hand, is the force responsible for dissolution.
A famous quote from Empedocles that leads us to reflect deeply.
11. We see the earth for the earth, the water for the water, the divine air for the air and the destructive fire for the fire. We understand love for love and hate for hate.
About sameness.
12. I have already been, before, a boy and a girl, a bush, a bird and a fish inhabiting the sea.
Another phrase from Parmenides that tells us about monism.
