Appearances are a glimpse of the unseen.
AnaxagorasRead
The Greeks are wrong to recognize coming into being and perishing; for nothing comes into being nor perishes, but is rather compounded or dissolved from things that are. So they would be right to call coming into being composition and perishing dissolution.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Anaxagoras argues that nothing truly comes into existence or ceases to exist; instead, things are simply formed or broken down from existing materials.
In this quote, Anaxagoras challenges the conventional Greek belief about existence, asserting that what we perceive as coming into being or perishing is merely a transformation of existing substances. He suggests that all matter is eternal, and that what we label as creation or destruction is actually just a rearrangement of what is already present, calling for a more nuanced understanding of existence.
Themes
ExistenceChangeTransformationPhilosophyMatter
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on ancient philosophy, you might use this quote to illustrate differing notions of existence.
More from Anaxagoras
All quotes →It is not I who have lost the Athenians, but the Athenians who have lost me.
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Men would live exceedingly quiet if these two words, mine and thine, were taken away.
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Everything has a natural explanation. The moon is not a god but a great rock and the sun a hot rock.
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And since the portions of the great and the small are equal in number, so too all things would be in everything. Nor is it possible that they should exist apart, but all things have a portion of everything.
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The descent into Hades is much the same from whatever place we start.
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