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.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that everything is interconnected and composed of elements from all things.
Anaxagoras' quote reflects the philosophical idea of unity in diversity, emphasizing that all entities in existence are interrelated and share fundamental components. It suggests that every aspect of reality contains a piece of everything else, reinforcing the notion that separation is an illusion and that existence is an intricate web of connections.
In practice
In a discussion about the importance of community, this quote could be used to highlight how every individual contributes to the whole.
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.
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.
The descent into Hades is much the same from whatever place we start.
We have contradictory expectations of police: We want to be perfectly safe and perfectly free. We want total security and total privacy. We want the bad guys stopped and the good guys unmolested. That's great for the consumer; try providing it.
The ethic of truth is the complete opposite of an 'ethics of communication'. It is an ethic of the Real The ethic of truth is absolutely opposed to opinion, and to ethics in general.
Philosophy takes as her aim the state of happiness...she shows us what are real and what are only apparent evils. She strips men's minds of empty thinking, bestows a greatness that is solid and administers a check to greatness where it is puffed up and all an empty show; she sees that we are left no doubt about the difference between what is great and what is bloated.
I've come to the conclusion that mythology is really a form of archaeological psychology. Mythology gives you a sense of what a people believes, what they fear.
The deep parts of my life pour onward, as if the river shores were opening out. I feel closer to what language can't reach. With my senses, as with birds, I climb into the windy heaven... in the ponds broken off from the sky. . .
Anyone who has lost something they thought was theirs forever finally comes to realise that nothing really belongs to them.
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