For all things come from earth, and all things end by becoming earth.
XenophanesRead
This upper limit, of earth at our feet is visible and touches the air, but below it reaches to infinity
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the vastness of the universe beyond our immediate perception.
Xenophanes suggests that while we can see and touch the ground beneath us, it is just a small part of a much larger reality that extends infinitely beyond our understanding. This inspires contemplation about the limits of human perception and the boundless nature of existence.
In practice
In a philosophical discussion about the nature of reality.
For all things come from earth, and all things end by becoming earth.
If oxen and lions had hands and could paint with their hands and produce works of art, as men do, horses would paint the forms of the gods likes horses and oxen like oxen. Each would represent them with bodies according to the bodies of each. So the Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed; the Thracians give theirs red hair and blue eyes.
There is one God - supreme among gods and men - who is like mortals in neither body nor mind.
The gods did not reveal, from the beginning, all things to us.
It isn't right to judge strength as better than good wisdom.
The Ethiops say that their gods are flat-nosed and black,_x000D_ While the Thracians say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair._x000D_ βIf oxen and horses and lions had hands and were able to draw with their hands and do the same things as men, horses would draw the shapes of gods to look like horses and oxen would draw them to look like oxen, and each would make the gods' bodies have the same shape as they themselves had.
The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation.
But actually time isn't a straight line. It doesn't ave a shape. In all senses of the term, it doesn't have any form. But since we can't picture something without form in our minds, for the sake of convenience we understand it as a straight line. At this point, humans are the only ones who can make that sort of conceptual substitution.
There is no witness so terrible, no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwells within us.
The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots.
How often are the perpetrators of hate-crimes discovered to be self-loathing? Valued individuals do not strike out against strangers.
I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.
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