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Democritus Quotes

Browse 5 quotes about Democritus.

Democritus Quotes

“Why does Alexander the Great never tell us about the exact location of his tomb, Fermat about his Last Theorem, John Wilkes Booth about the Lincoln assassination conspiracy, Hermann Göring about the Reichstag fire? Why don’t Sophocles, Democritus, and Aristarchus dictate their lost books?”

“Greek atomists Leucippus, his pupil Democritus, and other metaphysicians knew that the world was not how people saw and perceived it. If they understood atoms even then, the indivisible particles, not modern new atoms, we must believe that they understood much more. If they knew that every sense and sensation is a convention, they could have understood that space and time are conventions, too. Regardless of not thoroughly understanding or elaborating on these concepts, they understood that the world must be something different from what is experienced by the senses or how the senses understand it. If Everything is by a convention of senses, then senses can represent things differently; that is why the eye watches, not the ear. If Everything is a convention, then Everything we experience by senses must be relative.”

“Maybe Democritus did not understand that matter, as a convention or the world of atoms that makes the whole Universe, including our brain, which “rules” the senses and cognition, is the same convention. However, an atom is a convention. The World is a Convention of the Absolute. The conventions must be relative; only the Absolute is unconventional, but only by and through conventions are the world and life possible.”