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In reality, there is nothing but atoms and space

• Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.
• By convention sweet is sweet, by convention bitter is bitter, by convention hot is hot, by convention cold is cold, by convention colour is colour. But in reality, there are atoms and the void. That is, the objects of sense are supposed to be real and it is customary to regard them as such, but in truth they are not. Only the atoms and the void are real.
• We think there is colour, we think there is sweet, we think there is bitter, but in reality, there are atoms and a void.
• Moving in space, the atoms originally were individual units, but inevitable they began to collide with each other, and in cases where their shapes were such as to permit them to interlock, they began to form clusters. Water, air, fire, and earth, these are simply different clusters of the changeless atoms.

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More thoughts on truth and reality

• I would rather discover one true cause than gain the kingdom of Persia.
• We know nothing accurately in reality, but only as it changes according to the bodily condition, and the constitution of those things that flow upon the body and impinge upon it.
• We know nothing in reality; for truth lies in an abyss.
• According to Democritus, truth lies at the bottom of a well, the water of which serves as a mirror in which objects may be reflected. I have heard, however, that some philosophers, in seeking for truth, to pay homage to her, have seen their own image and adored it instead. Charles Francis Richter

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Knowledge

• Men should strive to think much and know little.
• No power and no treasure can outweigh the extension of our knowledge.

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Wisdom

• There are many who know many things, yet are lacking in wisdom.
• Men find happiness neither by means of the body nor through possessions, but through uprightness and wisdom.
• The wise man belongs to all countries, for the home of a great soul is the whole world.
• The wise man’s home is the universe.
• Medicine heals diseases of the body, wisdom frees the soul from passions.
• To a wise and good man the whole earth is his fatherland.
• The whole Earth is at the hand of the wise man, since the fatherland of an elevated soul is the Universe.
• To a wise man, the whole earth is open; for the native land of a good soul is the whole earth.
• One great difference between a wise man and a fool is, the former only wishes for what he may possibly obtain; the latter desires impossibilities.

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Intelligence

• Men have fashioned an image of Chance as an excuse for their own stupidity. For Chance rarely conflicts with intelligence, and most things in life can be set in order by an intelligent sharp sightedness.

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Education

• Nature and education are somewhat similar. The latter transforms man, and in so doing creates a second nature.
• Education is an ornament for the prosperous, a refuge for the unfortunate.

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Happiness and contentment

• Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.
• Happiness does not reside in strength or money; it lies in rightness and many-sidedness.
• If you would know contentment, let your deeds be few.
• By desiring little, a poor man makes himself rich.
• If your desires are not great, a little will seem much to you; for small appetite makes poverty equivalent to wealth.
• Men find happiness neither by means of the body nor through possessions, but through uprightness and wisdom.

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Desire

• Immoderate desire is the mark of a child, not a man.
• By desiring little, a poor man makes himself rich.
• If your desires are not great, a little will seem much to you; for small appetite makes poverty equivalent to wealth.
• You can tell the man who rings true from the man who rings false, not by his deeds alone, but also his desires.

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Self-control

• The brave man is he who overcomes not only his enemies but his pleasures.

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Moderation

• Throw moderation to the winds, and the greatest pleasures bring the greatest pains.
• The sweetest things become the most bitter by excess.

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Character

• Everywhere man blames nature and fate yet his fate is mostly but the echo of his character and passion, his mistakes and his weaknesses.
• Good breeding in cattle depends on physical health, but in men on a well-formed character.

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Beauty

• Beautiful objects are wrought by study through effort, but ugly things are reaped automatically without toil.
• It is godlike ever to think on something beautiful and on something new.

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Practice

• More men have become great through practice than by nature.

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Effort

• The good things of life are produced by learning with hard work; the bad are reaped of their own accord, without hard work.

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Action

• The word is the shadow of the deed.

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Democracy

Poverty in a democracy is as much to be preferred to what is called prosperity under despots, as freedom is to slavery.

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Reason

• Reason is often a more powerful persuader than gold.

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Trust

• Do not trust all men, but trust men of worth; the former course is silly, the latter a mark of prudence.

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Acceptance

• The person who can laugh with life has developed deep roots with confidence and faith-faith in oneself, in people and in the world, as contrasted to negative ideas with distrust and discouragement.

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Envy

• Envy is the cause of political division.
• The laws would not prevent each man from living according to his inclination, unless individuals harmed each other; for envy creates the beginning of strife.

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Greed

• People sometimes rationalize their greed by saying that it is all for the good of their children but this is nothing but an excuse they use to make their despicable actions appear respectable and praiseworthy.
• The animal needing something knows how much it needs, the man does not.
• It is greed to do all the talking but not to want to listen at all.
• The man enslaved to wealth can never be honest.

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Foolishness

• Men have made an idol of luck as an excuse for their own thoughtlessness.
• Men will cease to be fools only when they cease to be men.

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Anger

• It is hard to fight against anger: to master it is the mark of a rational man.
• Tis hard to fight with anger but the prudent man keeps it under control.

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The price of doing wrong

• If thou suffer injustice, console thyself; the true unhappiness is in doing it.
• The wrongdoer is more unfortunate than the man wronged.

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True virtue is a virtuous motive

• My enemy is not the man who wrongs me, but the man who means to wrong me.
• Virtue isn’t not wronging others but not wishing to wrong others.
• Good means not merely not to do wrong, but rather not to desire to do wrong.

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Sexual desire

• The brave man is not only he who overcomes the enemy, but he who is stronger than pleasures. Some men are masters of cities, but are enslaved to women.
• There are some men who are masters of cities but slaves to women.
• Sexual intercourse is a slight attack of apoplexy.

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More thoughts

• Hope of ill gain is the beginning of loss.
• Disease of the home and of the life comes about in the same way as that of the body.
• Everything existing in the universe is the fruit of chance and necessity.
• I am the most travelled of all my contemporaries; I have extended my field of enquiry wider than anybody else, I have seen more countries and climes, and have heard more speeches of learned men. No one has surpassed me in the composition of lines, according to demonstration, not even the Egyptian knotters of ropes, or geometers.
• In a shared fish, there are no bones.
• It is better to destroy one’s own errors than those of others.
• Life unexamined, is not worth living.
• Magnanimity consists in enduring tactlessness with mildness.
• Man is a universe in little.
• Now as of old the gods give men all good things, excepting only those that are baneful and injurious and useless. These, now as of old, are not gifts of the gods: men stumble into them themselves because of their own blindness and folly.
• Poor mind, from the senses you take your arguments, and then want to defeat them? Your victory is your defeat.
• Raising children is an uncertain thing; success is reached only after a life of battle and worry.
• To speak but little becomes a woman; and she is best adorned who is in plain attire.
• The man who is fortunate in his choice of son-in-law gains a son; the man unfortunate in his choice loses his daughter also.
• The offender, who repents, is not yet lost.
• The pride of youth is in strength and beauty, the pride of old age is in discretion.
• The wrongdoer is more unfortunate than the man wronged.
• There are innumerable worlds of different sizes. In some there is neither sun not moon, in others they are larger than in ours and others have more than one. These worlds are at irregular distances, more in one direction and less in another, and some are flourishing, others declining. Here they come into being, there they die, and they are distroyed by collision with one another. Some of the worlds have no animal or vegetable life nor any water.
• Whatever a poet writes with enthusiasm and a divine inspiration is very fine.
• Our sins are more easily remembered than our good deeds.

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