Men would live exceedingly quiet if these two words, mine and thine, were taken away.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that conflict arises from ownership and possessiveness.
Anaxagoras implies that the concepts of ownership, represented by 'mine' and 'thine', are significant sources of turmoil in human relationships. Without the distinction of possession, people might find greater peace and harmony, as many conflicts stem from how we attribute value to things based on ownership.
In practice
In a discussion about minimalism, this quote could emphasize the benefits of reducing attachments.
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.
Appearances are a glimpse of the unseen.
It is not I who have lost the Athenians, but the Athenians who have lost me.
Everything has a natural explanation. The moon is not a god but a great rock and the sun a hot rock.
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.
The descent into Hades is much the same from whatever place we start.
Nobody seriously believes the universe was made by God without being persuaded that He takes care of His works.
The grandeur of Jerusalem is also... its problem.
With pop stars or film stars, we become the object of people's self-definition, as well as the object of sexual definition.
We cannot, by total reliance on law, escape the duty to judge right and wrong... There are good laws and there are occasionally bad laws, and it conforms to the highest traditions of a free society to offer resistance to bad laws, and to disobey them.
It is very remarkable, that in the book of life, we find some almost of all kinds of occupations, who notwithstanding served God in their respective generations, and shone as so many lights in the world.
My position is that I am personally opposed to abortion, but I don't think I have a right to impose my view on the rest of society. I've thought a lot about it, and my position probably doesn't please anyone. I think the government should stay out completely. I will not vote to overturn the Court's decision. I will not vote to curtail a woman's right to choose abortion. But I will also not vote to use federal funds to fund abortion.
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