Anaxagoras Quotes

Anaxagoras said to a man who was grieving because he lay dying in a foreign land, "The descent to hell is the same from every place.

Men would live exceedingly quiet if these two words, mine and thine, were taken away.

Everything has a natural explanation. The moon is not a god but a great rock and the sun a hot rock.

Anaxagoras’ belief that lying on the right side during sex would produce a boy was so influential that centuries later some French aristocrats had their left testicles amputated.

The Greeks do not think correctly about coming-to-be and passing-away; for no thing comes to be or passes away, but is mixed together and dissociated from the things that are. And thus they would be correct to call coming-to-be mixing-together and passing-away dissociating

Like Anaximander, [Anaxagoras] believed that everything emerged from something indeterminate and confused; but he added that what caused the emergence from that state was the organizing intelligence, the Mind, just as in man, it is the intelligence which draws thought from cerebral undulations, and forms a clear idea out of a confused idea.

Appearances are a glimpse of the unseen.

Here there is left a tenuous subterfuge, 875 which Anaxagoras seizes: think of things as mixtures of everything, all concealed but one that shows—the one that’s mixed in largest measure and close to the surface and placed right at the top.

The second set assert that the contrarieties are contained in the one and emerge from it by segregation, (20) for example Anaximander and also all those who assert that ‘what is’ is one and many, like Empedocles and Anaxagoras; for they too produce other things from their mixture by segregation. These differ, however, from each other in that the former imagines a cycle of such changes, the latter a single series.

Why, there's the air, the sky, the morning, the evening, moonlight, my friends, women, the beautiful architecture of Paris to study, three big books to write and all sorts of other things. Anaxagoras used to say that he was in the world in order to admire the sun. And then I have the good fortune to be able to spend my days from morning to night in the company of a man of genius - myself - and it's very pleasant.

Mind is god and god is Mind

The statement that complete separation never will take place is correct enough, (5) though Anaxagoras is not fully aware of what it means. For affections are indeed inseparable. If then colours and states had entered into the mixture, and if separation took place, there would be a ‘white’ or a ‘healthy’ which was nothing but white or healthy, i. e. was not the predicate of a subject.

Anaxagoras is said to have predicted that if the heavenly bodies should be loosened by some slip or shake, one of them might be torn away, and might plunge and fall down to earth; and he said that none of the stars was in its original position; for being of stone, and heavy, their shining light is caused by friction with the revolving aether, and they are forced along in fixed orbits by the whirling impulse which gave them their circular motion, and this was what prevented them from falling to our earth in the first place, when cold and heavy bodies were separated from universal matter.

In exile in Lampsacus, Anaxagoras made his final benefaction to humanity: the invention of the school holiday.

Anaxagoras wrote, “It is by having hands that man is the most intelligent of animals.

After all, my dear fellow, life, as Anaxagoras has said, is a journey.

There is in fact also something more recent that Greek philosophy may regard only as an imported plant, something that is actually indigenous to Asia and Egypt; we must conclude that philosophy of this sort essentially only ruined the Greeks, that they declined because of it (Heraclitus, because of Zoroaster [Zarathustra of Iran]; Pythagoras, because of the Chinese; the Eleatics, because of the Indians; Empedocles, because of the Egyptians; Anaxagoras, because of the Jews).

it was deemed blasphemy when rationalists began to declare that the sun was not a divinity, and the philosopher Anaxagoras (c. 500-428 BCE) was executed for teaching that the sun was a fiery, lifeless mass of iron, "about the size of the Peloponnesus."28

I answer that, Philosophers have differed on this question. Anaxagoras, for instance, as Augustine mentions (De Civ. Dei xviii, 41), "was condemned by the Athenians for teaching that the sun was a fiery mass of stone, and neither a god nor even a living being.

Here, new information, new empirical data, led to a direct challenge to the way in which the gods were envisioned. This new doubt encouraged a new kind of punishment for doubt. Set up about 438 BCE, the law against Anaxagoras’s atheism held that society must “denounce those who do not believe in the divine beings or who teach doctrines about things in the sky.

And since the portions of both the large and the small are equal in amount, in this way too all things would be in everything; nor can they be separate, but all things have a portion of everything. Since there cannot be a smallest, nothing can be separated or come to be by itself, but as in the beginning now too all things are together. But in all things there are many things, equal in amount, both in the larger and the smaller of the things being separated off.

If Anaxagoras with his 'νοῡς' seemed like the first sober person among nothing but drunken philosophers, Euripides may also have conceived his relation to the other tragic poets under a similar figure. As long as the sole ruler and disposer of the universe, the νοῡς, was still excluded from artistic activity, things were all mixed together in a chaotic, primitive mess;—it is thus Euripides was obliged to think, it is thus he was obliged to condemn the 'drunken' poets as the first 'sober' one among them.

The great scientists from Thales to Democritus and Anaxagoras have usually been described in history or philosophy books as “Presocratics,” as if their main function was to hold the philosophical fort until the advent of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle and perhaps influence them a little. Instead, the old Ionians represent a different and largely contradictory tradition, one in much better accord with modern science. That their influence was felt powerfully for only two or three centuries is an irreparable loss for all those human beings who

[I]t has been eagerly pointed out how much the Greeks could find and learn abroad, in the Orient, and how many different things they may easily have brought from there. Of course an odd spectacle resulted, when certain scholars brought together the alleged masters from the Orient and the possible disciples from Greece, and exhibited Zarathustra near Heraclitus, the Hindoos near the Eleates, the Egyptians near Empedocles, or even Anaxagoras among the Jews and Pythagoras among the Chinese. In detail little has been determined; but we should in no way object to the general idea, if people did not burden us with the conclusion that therefore Philosophy had only been imported into Greece and was not indigenous to the soil, yea, that she, as something foreign, had possibly ruined rather than improved the Greek. Nothing is more foolish than to swear by the fact that the Greeks had an aboriginal culture; no, they rather absorbed all the culture flourishing among other nations, and they advanced so far, just because they understood how to hurl the spear further from the very spot where another nation had let it rest.

The great scientists from Thales to Democritus and Anaxagoras have usually been described in history or philosophy books as “Presocratics,” as if their main function was to hold the philosophical fort until the advent of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle and perhaps influence them a little. Instead, the old Ionians represent a different and largely contradictory tradition, one in much better accord with modern science. That their influence was felt powerfully for only two or three centuries is an irreparable loss for all those human beings who lived between the Ionian Awakening and the Italian Renaissance.

Democritus was a thorough-going materialist; for him, as we have seen, the soul was composed of atoms, and thought was a physical process. There was no purpose in the universe; there were only atoms governed by mechanical laws. He disbelieved in popular religion* and he argued against the nous of Anaxagoras. In ethics he considered cheerfulness the goal of life, and regarded moderation and culture as the best means to it. He disliked everything violent and passionate; he disapproved of sex, because, he said, it involved the overwhelming of consciousness by pleasure. He valued friendship, but thought ill of women, and did not desire children, because their education interferes with philosophy. In all this, he was very like Jeremy Bentham; he was equally so in his love of what the Greeks called democracy.XI

So Plato replies to Thrasymachus and Callicles, and to all Nietzscheans forever: Justice is not mere strength, but harmonious strength—desires and men falling into that order which constitutes intelligence and organization; justice is not the right of the stronger, but the effective harmony of the whole. It is true that the individual who gets out of the place to which his nature and talents adapt him may for a time seize some profit and advantage; but an inescapable Nemesis pursues him—as Anaxagoras spoke of the Furies pursuing any planet that should wander out of its orbit; the terrible baton of the Nature of Things drives the refractory instrument back to its place and its pitch and its natural note. The Corsican lieutenant may try to rule Europe with a ceremonious despotism fitted better to an ancient monarchy than to a dynasty born overnight; but he ends on a prison-rock in the sea, ruefully recognizing that he is “the slave of the Nature of Things.” Injustice will out.

The idea of panspermia-life propagating between worlds perhaps even between the stars goes back to the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras who as long as the fifth century imaged "seeds of life" spreading through the universe.

Matter is nonexistent except as something we see and experience as matter by our senses. Matter is only a manifestation of a Universal Mind. The primary quality of matter and all existence is not accessible directly or indirectly except by pure thought (intuition). All qualities, described by some major philosophers as primary and secondary qualities, I understand only as different modes of existence and relationships between the sensed or perceptible and different modes of perceptibility or perceptions (and senses) of the beings possessing these abilities. These qualities represent different levels (manifestations) of matter (existence and life) and do not disclose the actual nature either of matter or true primary quality, the underlying reality of all, which to me is only something I chose to call a Universal Mind. This Universal Mind, in some ways, may correspond to Plato’s (or Kant’s) noumenon, to Aristotle’s aether in a way, to Parmenides' Mind (Oneness), to Anaxagoras' nous (except that there were no things mixed up together before the mind or nous arranged them; instead the “things” are only potential or the transformed mind, manifestation of a mind), and to Plotinus’ ideas of a mind of this kind. Heidegger states that philosophy, since Plato, has neglected the idea and the Being itself and forgot to ask what it is.

For Milesian philosophers Thales (c. 626/623—c. 548/545 BC), Anaximander (c. 610—c. 546 BC), and Anaximenes (c. 586/585—c. 526/525 BC) there was an ultimate principle they called arche. For Thales, this ultimate principle from which everything originated was water; for Anaximenes, it was air; and for Anaximander, it was Apeiron (limitless), whereas, for the Pythagoreans, the number was the ultimate principle. For Heraclitus (c. 540—c. 480), arche was fire from which everything originated, but Logos was the ultimate principle uniting everything and connecting opposites. For Anaxagora (c. 500—c. 428 BC), a hundred years after the Milesians, the ultimate principle was the mind (nous), which is limitless because it is not material.

In fixing their gaze on the sky and on the movements of physical bodies, the scientific revolutionists were only continuing an austere religious tradition that goes back to the beginnings of civilization, if not before: and more immediately, they were resuming a practice that looks back to the Greeks. When Pythagoras was asked why he lived, he answered: "To look at heaven and nature." That struck the new scientific note. Similarly, Anaxagoras, de Santillana points out, when accused of caring naught for his kind and his own city, replied by pointing at the heavens and saying: "There is my country." The exchange of the Christian's universe, focused on man's existence and his ultimate salvation, for a purely impersonal universe without a God except the blazing sun itself, without a visible purpose or desirable human destination, might seem a bad bargain: indeed, a pitiable loss. But it had the compensatory effect of making science the only source of meaning, and the achievement of scientific truth the only ultimate purpose.

To him who feels that Nature is lovely, it appears an end in itself, it has the ground of its existence in itself: … the question, Why does it exist? does not arise. … Nature, as it impresses his senses, has indeed had an origin, has been produced, but not created in the religious sense, … [H]e posits … as the ground of Nature, a force of Nature, - a real, present, visibly active force, as the ground of reality. … Anaxagoras (510-428BC : 'Life is a journey.'): - Man is born to behold the world. … [M]an contents himself, allows himself free play, … [with] the sensuous imagination alone. … [H]e lets Nature subsist in peace, and constructs his castles in the air. … When, on the contrary, man … is in disunion with Nature[,] he makes Nature the abject vassal of his selfish interest, of his practical egoism. … Nature or the world is made, created, the product of a command.

There's nothing precious about life, Linus. People say life is precious, and sleep soundly in the thought that they're good and just, but everything they do is counter to that. Every hurt they do or help to do is at its heart anti-life. And it's not that in itself that makes me hate, but the hypocrisy of it all. The hypocrisy of it all is what makes me into–––I hope she razes this place to the ground. I hope she buries it in the sea." Abiron

who you want to meet and we’ll bring him to you.’ ‘Abraham is a hostage,’ Satyrus said. ‘You can’t bring him out of Athens, and I need to see him.’ His captains looked at him with something like suspicion. ‘I’m going to Athens,’ he insisted. ‘Without your fleet?’ Sandokes asked. ‘Haven’t you got this backward, lord? If you must go, why not lead with a show of force?’ ‘Can you go three days armed and ready to fight?’ Satyrus asked. ‘In the midst of the Athenian fleet? No. Trust me on this, friends. And obey – I pay your wages. Go to Aegina and wait.’ Sandokes was dissatisfied and he wasn’t interested in hiding it. ‘Lord, we do obey. We’re good captains and good fighters, and most of us have been with you a few years. Long enough to earn the right to tell you when you are just plain wrong.’ He took a breath. ‘Lord, you’re wrong. Take us into Athens – ten ships full of fighting men, and no man will dare raise a finger to you. Or better yet, stay here, or you go to Aegina and we’ll sail into Athens.’ Satyrus shrugged, angered. ‘You all feel this way?’ he asked. Sarpax shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Aekes and Sandokes have a point, but I’ll obey you. I don’t know exactly what your relationship with Demetrios is, and you do.’ He looked at the other captains. ‘We don’t know.’ Sandokes shook his head. ‘I’ll obey, lord – surely I’m allowed to disagree?’ Satyrus bit his lip. After a flash of anger passed, he chose his words carefully. ‘I appreciate that you are all trying to help. I hope that you’ll trust that I’ve thought this through as carefully as I can, and I have a more complete appreciation of the forces at work than any of you can have.’ Sandokes didn’t back down. ‘I hope that you appreciate that we have only your best interests at heart, lord. And that we don’t want to look elsewhere for employment while your corpse cools.’ He shrugged. ‘Our oarsmen are hardening up, we have good helmsmen and good clean ships. I wager we can take any twenty ships in these waters. No one – no one with any sense – will mess with you while we’re in the harbour.’ Satyrus managed a smile. ‘If you are right, I’ll happily allow you to tell me that you told me so,’ he said. Sandokes turned away. Aekes caught his shoulder. ‘There’s no changing my mind on this,’ Satyrus said. Sandokes shrugged. ‘We’ll sail for Aegina when you tell us,’ Aekes said. Satyrus had never felt such a premonition of disaster in all his life. He was ignoring the advice of a god, and all of his best fighting captains, and sailing into Athens, unprotected. But his sense – the same sense that helped him block a thrust in a fight – told him that the last thing he wanted was to provoke Demetrios. He explained as much to Anaxagoras as the oarsmen ran the ships into the water. Anaxagoras just shook his head. ‘I feel like a fool,’ Satyrus said. ‘But I won’t change my mind.’ Anaxagoras sighed. ‘When we’re off Piraeus, I’ll go off in Miranda or one of the other grain ships. I want you to stay with the fleet,’ Satyrus said. ‘Just in case.’ Anaxagoras picked up the leather bag with his armour and the heavy wool bag with his sea clothes and his lyre. ‘Very well,’ he said crisply. ‘You think I’m a fool,’ Satyrus said. ‘I think you are risking your life and your kingdom to see Miriam, and you know perfectly well you don’t have to. She loves you. She’ll wait. So yes, I think you are being a fool.’ Satyrus narrowed his eyes. ‘You asked,’ Anaxagoras said sweetly, and walked away.         3           Attika appeared first out of the sea haze; a haze so fine and so thin that a landsman would not even have noticed how restricted was his visibility.

At home in Athens, Pericles was pluralism personified. His friends were immigrants from all over the Greek world. He enjoyed gathering them together and taking them to the theater of Dionysus to see the latest exercises in free speech … like tragedies by Euripides which trashed the ancient gods and turned tradition on its head. At the leader’s side were Phidias, the sculptor, Socrates the idea-mincer, Anaxagoras the protoscientist from Clazomenae,8 and Pericles’ mate in sex, childbearing, and enterprise—not his wife, but his mistress, Aspasia, a brilliant Milesian who ran one of the world’s first intellectual salons.

Only a brief study of history is necessary to show that Greek philosophers were undesirable citizens, who throughout the period of their investigations were victims of relentless persecution, at the hands of the Athenian government. Anaxagoras was imprisoned and exiled; Socrates was executed; Plato was sold into slavery and Aristotle was indicted and exiled; while the earliest of them all, Pythagoras, was expelled from Croton in Italy. Can we imagine the Greeks making such an about turn, as to claim the very teachings which they had at first persecuted and openly rejected?

Parmenides and Zeno became famous for arguments which apparently cannot be refuted but which reach conclusions impossible to accept. These arguments provoke a crisis in philosophical accounts of the world; responses to it can be found in the cosmologies of Anaxagoras, Empedocles and the Atomists Leucippus and Democritus.

Questing for knowledge is valuable for its own sake. “Knowledge is the food of the soul” (Protagoras), Plato has Socrates say. When asked whether it is better to be born or not to be born, the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Anaxagoras replied that being born is better because it grants one the opportunity to “study the heavens and the whole universe.” (Anaxagoras) But devoting our life to a quest for knowledge, while valuable for its own sake, is made more valuable by the secondary benefits it confers, one of which is that it helps us escape mediocrity and to become a better human being.

The Egyptian world-view and Egyptian art were not tied to a single point of view or to a particular moment of time. Individuality in applied art does not equal truthfulness of being. Anaxagoras and Democritus were the first to clarify the laws of perspective and scenography (Vitruvius), explaining how rays of light must be transmitted in order to pass from a picture onto the retina as from a phenomenon. Thus, perspective was known in early antiquity. But it was not used because the task of painting was not to duplicate reality but to provide a more profound understanding of it.

Was Anaxagoras an atheist? There is nothing anachronistic about this question. In the late 430s, he was put on trial for “impiety,” on the grounds that he denied the divinity of the heavenly bodies (which he undoubtedly did). This may have been the first time in history that an individual was prosecuted for heretical religious beliefs.